and their tails just two inches long. Two of them, în a scale, weighed down just one copper halfpenny, which is about the third of an ounce avoirdupois; so that I suppose they are the smallest quadrupeds in this island. A full-grown mus medius domesticus weighs, I find, one ounce lumping weight, which is more than six times as much as the mouse above, and measures, from nose to rump, four inches and a quarter, and the same in its tail. We have had a very severe frost and deep snow this month. My thermometer was one day fourteen degrees and a half below the freezing point, within doors. The tender evergreens were injured pretty much. It was very providential that the air was still, and the ground well covered with snow, else vegetation in general must have suffered prodigiously. There is reason to believe that some days were more severe than any since the 1739-40.* year LETTER XIV. TO THE SAME. SELBORNE, March 12, 1768. DEAR SIR,-If some curious gentleman would procure the head of a fallow deer and have it dissected, he would find it furnished with two spiracula, or breathing-places,* besides the nostrils; probably analogous to the puncta lachrymalia, "lachrymal ducts," + in the human head. When deer are thirsty, they plunge their noses, like some horses, very deep under water, while in the act of drinking, and continue them in that situation for a considerable time; but, to obviate any inconveniency, they can open two vents, one at the inner corner of each eye, having a communication with the nose. Here seems to be an extraordinary provision of nature worthy our attention, and which has not, *See Letter LXI. The slits beneath the eyes of deer are certainly to facilitate breathing, as all keepers know. The separation of the nerves and blood vessels on the cheeks of deer does not affect the horns in any great degree, or even the cutting of the spermatic cord. Any injury, however, to the testicles in all cases either retards or alters the growth of the horns. - ED. that I know of, been noticed by any naturalist. For it looks as if these creatures would not be suffocated, though both their mouths and nostrils were stopped. This curious formation of the head may be of singular service to beasts of chase, by affording them free respiration; and no doubt these additional nostrils are thrown open when they are hard run. * Mr. Ray observed that at Malta, the owners *In answer to this account, Mr. Pennant sent me the following curious and pertinent reply :-" I was much surprised to find in the antelope something analogous to what you mention as so remarkable in deer. This animal also has a long slit beneath each eye, which can be opened and shut at pleasure. On holding an orange to one, the creature made as much use of those orifices as of his nostrils, applying them to the fruit, and seeming to smell it through them." [The structure of the glandular cavities, of which the orifices are here alluded to, precludes the possibility of their ever being used as accessory respiratory passages, or organs of scent. The common integument is continued over the margins of the orifice, and is reflected over the whole of the interior of the cavity, which is altogether imperforate, except by the ducts of a large flattened mucous gland, which occupies its base; a few short hairs spring up in the interspaces of the terminal orifices of the ducts. Mr. Hunter, whose attention was probably called by his friend Pennant to this peculiarity of the deer and antelopes, has left several preparations of the glands and sinus, taken from the Indian and another species of antelope, and also from the deer; in which their condition as tegumentary sacs, having no communication with the nose, is clearly shown. Conceiving that the secretion of these glands, when rubbed upon projecting bodies, might serve to direct individuals of the same species to each other, I prepared a tabular view of the relations between the habits and habitats of the several species of antelopes, and their suborbital, maxillary, post-auditory, and inguinal glands, in order to be able to compare the presence and degrees of development of the glands, with the gregarious and other habits of the antelope tribe. From this table it was, however, evident, that there is no relation between the gregarious habits of the antelopes which frequent the plains and the presence of the suborbital and maxillary sinuses; since these, besides being altogether wanting in some of the gregarious species, are present in many of the solitary frequenters of rocky mountainous districts. The supposition, therefore, that the secretion might serve, when left on shrubs or stones, to guide a straggler to the general herd, falls to the ground. The secretion of those cutaneous glands which are designed to attract the sexes, is generally observed to acquire towards the reproductive period a strong musky odour, as in the elephant and alligator; but the secretion of the suborbital sinuses, even when these are most fully developed, is devoid of any approach to a musky, or any other well defined odour. Nevertheless, the subjoined observations of Mr. Bennett tend to give some probability to the theory which ascribes to the suborbital sinuses a sexual relation.-R. O.] [It seems probable that these organs, on the use of which it is by no means slit up the nostrils of such asses as were hard worked; for they, being naturally strait or small, did not admit air sufficient to serve them when they travelled or laboured in that hot climate. And we know that grooms and gentlemen of creditable to naturalists to have now to speculate, may be designed for the promotion of that intimate acquaintance between animals of the same species which a primary law of nature requires; but it would be difficult to explain in what manner they may avail to such an end. That they have some connection with the full development of the animal powers will appear, I think, from the consideration of a series of individuals now living at the Zoological Society's Gardens. Among the whole of the deer and antelopes that are provided with suborbital sinuses, none have them more strongly marked than the Indian antelope; and in none of those animals are they more frequently brought into use. A fully grown male, the moment you approach him, throws back his head, and thrusts himself rapidly forwards, as though about to make an attack; but the backward direction of his long spirally twisted horns, and the freedom with which he offers to you his exposed neck and chest, are scarcely indicative of a hostile movement. He has at this time fully expanded the large bag beneath his eye; its thick lips, which pout considerably in the quiet state of the animal, are widely separated and thrown back; and the intervening space is actually everted, the base of the sac forming a projection instead of a hollow. see the bare skin, covered only by a coating of a dark ceruminous secretion. This, if the hand be within his reach, the animal attempts to rub against the knuckles; and we then feel that, though the lining skin of the sac has no general covering of hair, it is not destitute of a few bristles, which grate against the finger subjected to the friction. The friction is evidently agreeable to the animal, for it is often repeated; at times, it is even continued for a minute or two. After the finger has been subjected for some time to this rubbing, it will be found to have acquired a heavy odour of a salt and peculiar character. We The Zoological Society has at present, in its gardens in the Regent's Park, four individuals of the Indian antelope: an adult and aged male, brought by Col. Sykes from Bombay, and presented to the Society nearly five years ago; a younger, yet adult, male that was presented in an immature condition, about two years since; an immature male lately arrived, and in about the same state of development as that in which the last-mentioned individual was when he was originally presented; and an emasculated specimen of full growth. The series is singularly complete as regards one sex; the other sex has not yet been possessed by the society, and is, indeed, rarely seen in Europe. Destitute of horns, and never acquiring the rich deep colour of the males, the female is probably considered as less worthy of exportation from the native country of the species. During the time that the old male has remained in the Gardens, he has constantly behaved in the manner described above; the conduct of his several predecessors has been precisely similar. He widely expands the suborbital sinus, and brings it near to any substance offered to him; he might even be suspected of a disposition to test, by some special sense lodged in it, the nature of the substance offered: but he usually drives the naked and everted skin the turf, think large nostrils necessary, and a perfection, in hunters and running horses. Oppian, the Greek poet, by the following line, seems to have had some notion that stags have four spiracula : 66 Τετράδυμοι ῥινὲς, πίσυρες πνοίῃσι δίαυλοι. Writers, copying from one another, make Aristotle say, against the hand, either thrusting it repeatedly, or rubbing it. The peculiar odour is freely imparted to the substance rubbed, but seems to offer no special attraction to his senses: he neither smells to it remarkably, nor licks it. The second male, whose horns have about three-fourths of their full growth, and whose rich colours are only less deep than those of his more aged neighbour, acts in a similar manner. His suborbital sinus, though strongly developed, is not so extensive as that of the older animal: in its quiet state it is scarcely completely closed, so thick are its lips; in its condition of excitement it is widely expanded. The animal then thrusts it at the offered hand; but does not exhibit an equal readiness to rub it. The youngest male is evidently immature; its horns have only commenced making their first spiral turn, and its colour is the fawn of the female, with her pale stripe along the side for in the Indian antelope, as in most animals in which the adult males differ in colour from the females, the young of both sexes are similarly coloured and resemble the dam. In this individual the suborbital sinus is small; its lips are closely applied to each other; and they are but slightly moved when the animal is interested; if he uses his nose, the sac is called into moderate action. He cares little for the odour of his older relatives. The remaining specimen was probably of nearly the same age with this younger male when that occurred which, while it allowed of the animal's increasing in bulk, checked the development of the external characters that belong to the mature male. Its advance towards perfection was arrested while the female livery of the young animal was yet retained, and its colour is the fawn of the female with the side marked lengthways by her paler line. Its horn too, normal in its character, as far as a point corresponding with the early part of the first spiral turn, and about this point regularly ringed, afterwards loses the form characteristic of the species, and instead of being completed by a continuous series of spiral turns, surrounded by strongly marked rings, becomes smooth, continues slender, and is directed backwards in one single large sweep, forming a horn altogether monstrous, and one which is sheep-like, though infinitely weak, rather than antelopine: only one such horn remains. In this animal the suborbital sinus is not more developed than in the youngest and immature male, and it is quite unused: the sinus is little more than a mark existing in the ordinary situation, and no motion whatever is observed in its lips; it is not applied to any substance brought near to it, the nose being usually employed. A finger loaded with the secretion from the sac of the mature male is smelt to by this individual, and is then freely licked; perhaps on account of its saltness alone, but probably |