MISCELLANEA. 
51 
great deal of ridicule. The horse died, and was opened at 
Alfort, in the presence of the facetious professor and seyeral of 
his pupils ; when, as if to avenge me for the pleasantries which 
had been lavished upon me, two ruptures of the intestines were 
found instead of the one which I had predicted. D. 
Journ. des Sciences, Zooiat., Juillet 1836. 
I well recollect a case in which I felt this convulsive action of 
the inferior coccygeal muscles, in a case of apparently violent 
colic ; and post-mortem examination developed rupture of the 
colon : but I acknowledge that I did not then trace the con- 
nexion between this symptom and the intestinal lesion. I shall 
be more on the alert another time. Y. 
A Singular Case of Depraved Appetite in a Cow. 
By M. Sorillon, Jun. 
Since she was six months old, a heifer belonging to M. Du- 
bois, of Martins, was observed often to leave the meadow in 
which her mother and the other cattle fed, and run along the 
lanes and the hedges, seeking for something which she ate with 
singular appetite. The cowherd was not a very attentive fellow, 
and it was only by chance that he discovered the object of her 
eager search. One day he surprised her by the hedge side, 
eating w'ith avidity a quantity of human faeces. It was with 
great difficulty that he could drive her away from the place. 
After that, he saw that whenever she was at liberty in the 
meadow, she was diligently searching about for this singular 
food, and more than once 1 saw her thus employed. 
He has had her for three years since that time ; she always 
appeared to be in good health ; and she was in a very fair con- 
dition, but she, nowand then, has that short cough which is the 
frequent precursor of phthisis; indeed, it would not be at all 
strange if that disease was developed under the influence of 
food so charged with calcareous salts. 
Her sister also had a decided fancy for animal substances, and 
eagerly gnawed every bone she could find. 
liec. de Med. Vet., J a no. 1836. 
