1885.] 
97 
Analyses oj Books. 
His accounts, like all others, of the size of the Bengal tiger are 
of necessity vitiated by the absurd practice of tiger-hunters, of 
measuring their slain opponents from the tip of the nose to the 
*'P> instead of to the root of the tail. This custom renders the 
recorded dimensions valueless for indicating the real size of the 
animals. 
Reading further, we find a reference to the abominable crime 
of tiger preserving. We may laugh at, whilst we regret, the folly 
of the Hmdoo peasant who holds the tiger in superstitious rever- 
ence. But the civilised (?) European who spares the cubs of this 
e . n( r rn y man that he may afterwards display his courage and 
skill in shooting them when mature stands on a yet lower level, 
and is constructively a murderer. Surely the necessary extir- 
pation of the tiger might be much facilitated by the use of poisoned 
bullets. 
A strange fail concerning the leopard is mentioned on the 
authority of Sir Emerson Tennant. They have, in Ceylon at 
least, a peculiar fancy for the flesh of persons suffering from 
small-pox, by the specific odour of which, they are, it seems 
strongly attracted. 
Mr. Nicols seems to have come into unpleasantly close con- 
tad with the skunk in South America, and describes his sufferings 
on the occasion most graphically. He estimates the distance to 
which this animal can ejed its dreadful secretion as fully ten feet. 
The common assertion that the mungoos is endowed with a 
special immunity from the venom of the cobra, or that it has re- 
course to some antidote, he disproves by reference to an adual 
experiment, which, as it was made with a scientific objed, will 
be in certain quarters ranked amongst “ orgies of d-'abolism.” 
fl he author quotes the statement made by Mr. Lawson Tait 
(in a paper read before the Birmingham Philosophical Society in 
1883), that no other animal but the cat is subjed to congenital 
deafness, and only those that are white are so affeded. 
This assertion was made too hastily. Dr. S. W. Burnett gives 
two instances of dogs deaf from puppyhood — one of them, more- 
over, not white but yellow. 
Mr. Nicols denounces, not unjustifiably, the numerous persons 
who go off for a month or more to the seaside, leaving an unfor- 
tunate cat to starve or thieve. The number of these homeless 
cats is, in London, very considerable. On this subjed he writes: 
— “ Here is a clear field of adion for the opponents of experi- 
ments upon living animals for the purpose of physiological re- 
search. Without a doubt more cats die annually in London of 
starvation than in all the physiological laboratories in the world, 
and they die a terrible death in consequence of the selfishness of 
those who are responsible for their well-being. Unfortunately, 
however, the case of these tortured cats does not present features 
which lend themselves to sensational or piduresque effeds in 
VOL. VII. (THIRD series). 
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