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eduld not determine. Persons judging the badger from its feet might easily 
suppose it to be little addicted to predaceous habits, for they are ill adapted 
for seizing live animals ; but the badger's mode of attack is with the mouth. 
I can offer very few remarks on the bats, a family which has been little studied 
by British naturalists. I once, however, obtained a specimen of Scotophilus dis- 
color, which was captured at Brighton. 
The common shrew has been supposed to be subject to a great mortality a 
certain seasons of the year, but this has, I think, never been proved. It is prob- 
ably occasioned thus : the males being more numerous than the females, have 
frequent battles at the breeding season, and being very tender, many are killed 
Cats, if they kill the shrew, usually avoid eating it, on account of the acrid poison 
it secretes in its singular gland near the tail, but owls and hawks eat it freely. 
The superstitions connected with the shrew's supposed power of injuring cattle 
have doubtless reference to the poisonous properties of its secretion, which might 
affect injuriously drinking troughs in which a shrew was drowned. 
The squirrel, the most beautiful of the smaller quadrupeds, varies much in size 
in its different localities. In the New Forest it is very much larger, and its colour 
a brighter chestnut than in Devonshire or the western counties. 
The Dormouse. — Its nest differs much in form from its hybernaculum, the 
latter being not above a third of the size of the first. 
The Brown Rat. — I believe there is some error in Mr. Ponton's paper or its 
report in the February number of the Society's journal. 15^ inches is the length 
of the black rat, and 19 in. that of the brown rat, instead of 15£ inches being 
the length of the brown rat. 
The Secretary (Mr. Swayne), exhibited a larva of Myrmeleo, Formica 
leo or Ant-lion, a neuropterous insect, which had been sent to him in a 
letter from New South Wales five months ago, and was still living, 
although it had eaten nothing since its capture. The curious habits of 
this insect were briefly alluded to, and a passage read from the Rev. J. G. 
Wood's Natural History, referring to their power of enduring deprivation 
of food. 
Mr. A. Leipner remarked that this insect was not uncommon in 
Germany. 
Mr. Swayne also exhibited the skull of the gorilla, the uncleaned 
skeleton (five feet five inches long), and skin of which had been recently 
sent to the Institution by Mr. Gordon, Gaboon River, W. Africa. In com- 
parison with it were exhibited the gorilla skulls previously in the Institution 
collection, and Mr. Swayne remarked that the new one was a good typical 
