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Show 476 MR. P. L. SCLATER ON DASYPELTIS SCABRA. [June 14, " I had hoped to have shown to-night the animals I sent off alive from Egypt, but they all died on the way home, the last off the Isle of Wight. The person who was in charge of them informs m e that they would probably all have reached this country alive had not the sandy earth that had been sent with them been impregnated with salt, which began to deliquesce as soon as the ship got into the moist atmosphere of the Mediterranean." Prof. Romanes gave an account of some results recently obtained from the cross-breeding of Rats and Rabbits, and showed that according to these experiments it did not follow that a blending of the characters of the parents was always the result of crossing two different varieties. Prof. Howes exhibited and made remarks on some photographs received from Prof. Parker, of Otago, N e w Zealand, illustrative of Sea-Lions, Penguins, and Albatrosses in their native haunts. Dr. Dawson made some remarks on the Fur-Seal of Alaska, and exhibited a series of photographs illustrating the attitudes and mode of life of these animals. Mr. Sclater called attention to the habits of a South-African Snake (Dasypeltis scabra), as exhibited by an example of this snake presented to the Society's Menagerie by Messrs. Herbert M . and Claude Beddington, of Port Elizabeth, and received September 15, 1891, which was placed on the table. As was well known, this snake fed exclusively on eggs ; and since it had been iii the Society's Gardens it had occasionally eaten pigeons' eggs. These were, no doubt, pierced by the gular teeth which this peculiar snake possesses, and their contents emptied into the stomach. A short time after the egg had been swallowed, the shell of the egg was rejected from the mouth in the form of a pellet. Specimens of these pellets were exhibited1. 1 Dr. Andrew Smith writes as follows:- " The paucity and smallness of the teeth in the mouth are favourable to the passage of the egg, and permit it to progress without injury, whereas were tbey otherwise, many eggs, which have very thin shells, would be broken before they entered the gullet, and the animal in consequence would be deprived of its natural food when within its reach. Having observed that living specimens which I kept in confinement always retained tbe egg stationary about two inches behind the head, and while in that position used great efforts to crush it, I killed one, and found the gular teeth at about the place where the egg ceases to descend. Those teeth, I a m satisfied from many observations, assist in fixing the egg, and also in breaking the shell when the former reaches them, and is subjected to compression by the muscular action of the parts surrounding it. The instant the egg is broken by the exertions of the animal, the shell is ejected from the mouth, and the fluid contents are conveyed onwards to the stomach." (' Illustrations of Zoology of S. Africa,' text to plate 73.) |