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Show 1887.] ANIMALS IN THE SOCIETY'S GARDENS. 367 The companion Lion still lives in the Gardens, and there is little reason to doubt that it is similarly affected, for it is paraplegic and can only manage to drag itself a few paces. The head is occasionally drawn to one side, and at intervals oscillates from side to side in a rhythmic manner. So far as I am aware, the present is the first account of this singular affection that has yet been published, but there is little doubt that if looked for other specimens will turn up. The abnormality is an excellent example of disease modified by anatomical peculiarity. There is a widespread notion that in the human subject marriages of consanguinity often resuit in the production of offspring with physical defects. A good deal of evidence can be adduced in support of this opinion. In animals little can be urged in its favour. In them, on the other hand, hybrid offspring are most prone to exhibit congenital defects. The following is a case in point. In February a female goat gave birth to two kids, the result of a cross between the Common Goat and a Goral Antelope. The kids were dead when born, and each presented enormous enlargement of the thyroid gland. There was general dropsy, affecting not only the subcutaneous tissue of the body, but giving rise to ascites and hydrothorax. The enlargement of the glands was such as is seen in the common form of goitre. The disease was not associated with defects in the bones which have been recorded in the calf under the name of sporadic cretinism. A specimen of overgrowth occurred in the hind feet of a Coati; they are represented in my drawing (fig. -1). The animal suffered from phimosis and suppuration of the scrotum, which prevented it from freely moving about. As a result the papillae of the callous pad have become enormously overgrown, and in one foot project posteriorly in the form of a blunt spur. These overgrown papillae cause the feet to assume an appearance similar to the pads on the toes of an Ostrich. On examining the feet of other Coatis confined in the Gardens, I find that all present on each hind foot, along the inner border, a collection of overgrown papillae similar to those just described, but by no means so extensive. Whether this overgrowth of papilla; in this situation is found in tbe wild state I am unable to say, but in Coatis which have been long in confinement it is larger thanin those recently added to the collection. The length and extent of this abnormal papillary area, in all probability, depends upon diminished usage of the foot-an inevitable result of captivity. It is well known that Cows living upon bogs or marshy land are very liable to suffer from overgrowth of tbe hoofs; the same holds good for Horses. Thus, in a specimen of a Horse's manus preserved in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, the overgrown hoof measures from the heel to the tip nearly 12 inches. The feet from which the drawings in fig. 5 were taken belonged to a Goat which, for some time preceding its death, had lived in a muddv paddock. The longer hoof measures no less than 14 inches round* the curve, the shorter one 9 inches. They are, so far as I am aware the longest examples of overgrown hoofs yet recorded. 2o* |
