312 
FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS. 
the equine fossils from sedimentary deposits, and both 
varieties from the Bruniquel cave, to one and the same species 
or well-marked race belonging to the true horses, or restricted 
Eqims of modern mammalogists ; the individuals of which 
race, with a small range of size, probably due to sex, were 
less than the average-sized horse of the present period, but 
larger than the existing striped or unstriped species of 
Asinus. — Ibid. 
South American Oxen. —At a very recent meeting of 
the French Academy of Sciences, M. de Quatrefages pre¬ 
sented a memoir written by M. Sanson on a peculiar group 
of oxen found in South America. The cranium of this sup¬ 
posed new family has been examined, and various naturalists 
who have seen it have regarded it as a monstrosity. But M. 
Sanson says that if it is a monstrosity it is capable of per¬ 
petuating itself, since it is represented in South America by 
large flocks of cattle. In Mexico it is particularly abundant, 
and, thanks to a correspondent in that country, M. Sanson 
has obtained photographs of the new species.— Com^tes-Rendus, 
March 8. 
Paris Milk and Water. —The Paris Constitutionnel 
states that the consumption of milk in Paris is 500,000 litres 
per diem, at the price of 25 centimes the litre, to which 
50,000 litres of water are added, bringing the depredations 
in this article to the sum of 4,500,000 per annum. The 
dairy proprietor, the milk merchant, the collector, and the 
retail milk seller, all add their quota of water. The price, 25 
centimes per litre, less than 2|d. per quart, is, in fact, not 
remunerative, and hence the constancy of the fraud. Che¬ 
mical experts cannot prevent it, for there is no normal 
standard of the quality of milk; nor can such exist, since its 
density varies from numerous causes acting on the 
animal, such as food, localities, time of milking, the mode in 
which this is done, &c.— Medical Times. 
Starvation of Animals through Drought. —Shock¬ 
ing accounts (says the Melbourne Argus) come from the 
interior as to the state of affairs produced by the long 
drought. In a Wagga Wagga paper we read that in almost 
every direction the roads are swarmed with flocks of wretched 
animals, mere bags of bones, seeking in vain for a mouthful 
of something—anything—to eat. A flock belonging to Mr. 
Morron, of Grubbengong, had been driven to Bland^s Creek, 
and were brought back to Grubbengong, with a loss of 1300 
from starvation and thirst; 500 were lost at one fell swoop 
by rushing pell-mell, in the agonies of thirst, into a water- 
hole, and smothering themselves in the mud.^^— Standard. 
