Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 4 (1846).djvu/199

Rh this situation, — will be obliged either to slaughter their cattle, or to abandon them to certain death on the pastures thus poisoned by the volcanic ashes. — Times; April 30th, 1846.

Admirable sagacity of a Fox in preying upon Game. — The following fact some time ago was related to me by a forester who had been an eye-witness of the fact ; it struck me so with astonishment, that I thought it proper for communication to the 'Zoologist.' One morning coming home from shooting, I observed at some distance a fox jumping continually up to a trunk of a tree of middling height, holding something in his mouth : on my examination what it was, I saw it to be a branch of considerable size. Anxious to learn the reason of this matter, I laid myself down quietly, cocking my double-barrelled gun. In a very short time the fox left the branch and sat him- self down on the trunk preparing for a jump. Soon after I heard the approaching of a family of wild pigs, which after some time, were quite near to the trunk. At the moment when they passed the fox, he jumped down on one of the shoals (young wild pig) and returned with it to his elevated residence, preparing himself to begin a fat breakfast, quite careless to the impotent anger of the sow, who began to try to jump up to the tree and to root under it, when my first shot killed the fox, and the other, one of the best shoals, which induced her to fly. — A. Lamek; Wandsbeck, February 26, 1846.

Cattle mouthing bones. — The singular fact of cows masticating bones, appears to have attracted the notice of many of your readers, but no satisfactory reason for this apparently unnatural appetite has been offered. I do not think this craving ought to be confounded with chewing leather and other indigestible substances, noticed by some of your contributors, which I should refer to the same cause which produces those un- natural appetites frequently observed not only in animals, but in human beings, when suffering from states of the digestive organs, accompanied by painful sensations : dirt-eating among the negroes in the West Indies in the bygone times of slavery, and the craving for chalk, tobacco-pipes, candies, and other absorbents felt by some females. The stomach of dogs which have died of hydrophobia always contain a large quantity of indigestible substances, such as the straw litter of the kennel, &c. which the animals greedily swallow, apparently with the desire of quelling some artificial internal sensa- tion. Heapity too, will compel the use of a strange diet. The most singular and un- natural instance I ever witnessed, was what I may denominate a cannibal lamb. This animal was reared in the slaughter-house of a London butcher, and from its unnatu- ral circumstance of birth and education, was brought up upon animal diet ; and I have repeatedly seen this lamb eating a dish full of mutton suet, apparently with great relish. But the bone eating of cows, may be with great probability attributed to a very distinct cause from those painful cravings founded on disordered functions. I attribute it rather to an organic instinct, by which the animal is guided by some natu- ral feelings to select articles of diet, which at the first view seem unnatural. Phosphate of lime is one of the most important constituents of milk, and from it as drawn from the milk of the parent, the solid matter is deposited in osseous structures of the infant animal. The loss of the phosphates from the milch cow must be very great and con- stant ; and I think it is to supply this drain the animal greedily devours bones, of which the earthy portion is well-known to consist chiefly of phosphate of lime. Ad- mitting this to be the true explanation of this fact, it might be well worth the atten- tion of graziers, &c., for, if the pasturage or fodder of milch cattle or cows suckling calves, does not contain sufficient of the phosphate, a portion of bone dust might I