direction, so that the snout is not far from the ground.' "'Swine,' continues Blumenbach, 'in some countries have degenerated into races which, in singularity, far exceed every thing that has been found strange in bodily variety among the human race. Swine with solid hoofs were known to the ancients, and large breeds of them are found in Hungary and Sweden. In like manner, the European swine first carried by the Spaniards in 1509 to the island of Cubagua, at that time celebrated for its pearl fishery, degenerated into a monstrous race, with toes which were half a span in length.' There are breeds of solid-hoofed swine in some parts of England. The hoof of the swine is also found divided into five clefts. "Buffon had before remarked the varieties of the hog tribe. 'In Guinea,' he observes, 'this species has acquired very long ears, couched upon the back; in China, a large pendant belly, and very short legs; at Cape Verde and other places, very large tusks, crooked like the horns of oxen; in domestication, half pendant and white ears.'" * * * * * "A very remarkable fact relative to the oxen of South America is recorded by M. Roulin, to which M. Geoffrey St Hilaire has particularly adverted, in the report made by him on M. Roulin's Memoir, before the Royal Academy of Sciences. "In Europe, the milking of cows is continued through the whole period, from the time when they begin to bear calves till they cease to breed. This secretion of milk has become a constant function in the animal economy of the tribe; it has been rendered such by the practice, continued through long series of generations, of continuing to draw milk long after the period when it would be wanted for the calf; the teats of the cow are larger than in proportion, and the secretion is perpetual. In Columbia, the practice of milking cows was laid aside, owing to the great extent of farms and other circumstances. 'In a few generations,' says M. Roulin, 'the natural structure of parts, and withal, the natural state of the function, has been restored. The secretion of milk in the cow of this country is only an occasional phenomenon, and contemporary with the actual presence of the calf. If the calf dies, the milk ceases to flow, and it is only by keeping him with his dam by day, that an opportunity of obtaining milk from cows by night can be found.' This testimony is important, by the proof which it affords that the permanent production of milk in the European breeds of cows is a modified function of the animal economy, produced by an artificial habit continued through several generations. Two other very important observations made by M. Roulin in South America, were pointed out by M. Geoffrey St Hilaire