_Tortoiseshell Tom-cat_ (Vol. v., p. 465.; Vol. vii., p. 271.).--I have certainly heard of tortoiseshell tom-cats; but never having seen one, I cannot affirm that any such exist. The fact of their rarity is undoubted; but I should like to be informed by W. R., or any other person who has paid particular attention to the natural history of this useful and much calumniated domestic animal, whether yellow female cats are not quite as uncommon as tortoiseshell males? HONORE DE MAREVILLE. Guernsey. * * * * * Miscellaneous. NOTES ON BOOKS, ETC. The new edition of Mr. Smee's valuable little work on _The Eye in Health and Disease_, is one to which we desire to direct the attention of all our readers, for the subject is one of great importance, and more especially to reading men. Mr. Smee has obviously devoted great attention to the various derangements to which this hardly-worked yet beautifully-delicate organ is liable; and his remarks cannot fail to prove of great service to those who require the assistance either of the oculist or the optician. To our photographic readers, the present reprint will be of especial interest for the very able paper "_On the Stereoscope and Binocular Perspective_," which is appended to it. _The Homeric Design of the Shield of Achilles_, by William Watkiss Lloyd. A dissertation on a subject immortalised by the poetry of Homer and the sculpture of Flaxman, which will well repay our classical readers for the time spent in its perusal. _Architectural Botany, setting forth the Geometrical Distribution of Foliage, Flowers, Fruit_, &c.--a separately published extract from Mr. W. P. Griffith's _Ancient Gothic Churches_--is a farther endeavour on the part of the author to direct attention to the laws by which vegetable productions were created and imitated by the early architects, and thereby to contribute to securing greater beauty and precision on the part of their successors to the decoration of churches.