The corpses of animals, like those of men, are sometimes very rigid; at others they are soft and flaccid, and decompose rapidly. Thus all the sheep of a flock which were together under a tree in Scotland, were killed by a great clap of thunder. The next morning the owner, wishing to get some advantage out of their remains, sent his men to skin them, but the bodies were already in such a state of decomposition, and the stench was so abominable, that it was impossible for the servants to execute his orders. They hurried to bury the sheep in their skins. On September 10, 1845, at about 2 p.m., lightning fell on a house in the village of Salagnac (Creuse). Amongst other accidents it killed a pig in a stable; three hours after the body was completely decomposed. When animals are killed, not by the atmospheric fluid, but by the lightning of our machines, decomposition always comes on very rapidly. Brown Sequard made the following very curious experiment on this subject:-- He took the hearts away from five rabbits of the same kind, the same age, and about the same strength. He put one aside without touching it, and he submitted the four others to the passage of an electric current, of a different strength for each animal. Here are the different results obtained-- The first animal became rigid after ten hours, and its rigidity, which was excessively marked, lasted eight days. The rigidity of the four others was feebler, and lasted a shorter time in proportion to the strength of the electric current. Thus, the one which received the weakest current, became rigid at the end of seven hours, and this lasted six days. The one which received the strongest current became rigid in seven minutes, and its body softened after a quarter of an hour. This experiment explains the absence, or the shortness in duration, of corpselike stiffness in subjects which have been subjected to the terrible discharge of lightning. Animals are not only the frequent victims of lightning, but, as this experiment shows, they are still oftener the martyrs of science. Laboratories are sometimes transformed into small cemeteries, where lie poor guineapigs, frogs which have been quartered, and mutilated rabbits. But what is the ordinary lot of these last when science spares them? The chief point is not to let the innocent victims suffer. Can we eat with impunity the flesh of animals which have been struck? Several people say Yes, many say No. Both are right. Putting aside the question of the rapid putrefaction to which these bodies are nearly always subjected, the flesh of animals killed by fulguration has often been found unhealthy and uneatable. A veterinary surgeon who was commissioned to examine the bodies of two cows and an ox which had been struck in a stable, declared that their flesh could not be eaten without danger.