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Show 4 LETTER FROM MR. W. H. HUDSON. [Ja**- 3> had doubtless been rejected as being less succulent than the remainder of his carcass. ... . , f " The Mungoose is at this moment just as brisk and lively as before the encounter, though a fortnight has now elapsed since it took place. . . "It has defied all attempts to examine whether or not it was wounded, and if so to what extent. _ _ " The serpent was not full-grown, but was of a size quite sufficient for its bite to have caused the death of a man in a few hours." Mr. Sclater was well aware that similar experiments to this above recorded had been made more than once, and that similar results had followed, but had never heard any satisfactory explanation given of how it came to pass that the Mungoose was not injured, if it was really bitten by the Serpent. A tenth letter on the Ornithology of Buenos Ayres, addressed to the Secretary by Mr. W . H. Hudson, C.M.Z.S., was read : - " Buenos Ayres, August 21, 1870. " D E A R SIR,-People in Buenos Ayres are as familiar with the Gaviota (Larus cirrhocephalus) as with the domestic poultry about their houses. It is one of the trio of our commonest species, the other two being the Teru and the Chimango. But these two are exclusively land birds, and to make their acquaintance it is also necessary to go a few miles out of a great crowded city. Not so with the Gaviota, whose white graceful form is not more familiar to the gaucho dwelling far off on the inland plains, than to the sailors in every ship that navigates the river Plata, or to the townsman, who may know it well without ever having left the city's pavement. "In October these birds congregate in vast numbers in their breeding-places, which are marshes covered with some aquatic plant, usually the loose growing j unco. These reeds are much bent and broken down by the Gulls, and are used as material for their nests, which are placed on the water close together. The female lays four oblong eg_;s, large for the bird, obtusely pointed, of a pale clay-colour, thickly spotted at the large end with dull black. " Every morning, at break of day, the Gulls rise up from their nests and hover over tbe marsh, uttering loud cries and producing a noise that may be heard distinctly two or*three miles away. The eggs are excellent eating, resembling those of the Plover in delicacy of flavour, as well as in the lustrous pearl colour which the white assumes when boiled. From the circumstance of such large numbers of Gulls laying their eggs near together, it is a very easy task to get them ; so that when the plains adjacent to their favourite spots become settled, they have but little chance of rearing their young, as the boys in the neighbourhood ride in and gather them every morning. The Gulls, however, are so tenacious of their breeding-places that they continue to resort to them every summer to lav, and only abandon them after several years persecution, or, as often happens, on the marsh drying up. But notwithstanding such quantities of their |