lowed a servant out on the street, and then for the first time saw a butcher's shop. The animal threw himself down, and could not be induced to pass the place. The dog is now nearly three years old, and the antipathy has diminished somewhat, but not disappeared. Mr. Huggins lately found that "Kepler's" ancestor, "Turk," manifested the same antipathy, and his former owner was asked for information on the subject. It now appears that this curious dislike for butchers' shops and butchers was shown equally by "Turk's" sire, "King" (in whom it probably originated), and by "Punch" and "Paris," sons of "Turk." The antipathy is most marked in "Paris," who will hardly enter a street containing a butcher's shop, and runs away after he has passed it. If a butcher's cart comes to the place where the dogs are kept, they are filled with fright even though they do not see the object of their fears. "Turk's" owner, Mr. Nichols, then tells of two instances where "Paris" gave evidence of the most extraordinary sagacity in recognizing a butcher under any circumstances. One evening a boss-butcher, in ordinary clothes, called to see "Paris," but had scarcely entered the house when the dog became unmanageable, and the visitor had to leave without seeing him. On another occasion "Paris" sprang at a gentleman, and, as it was the first exhibition he ever had made of such viciousness, his owner apologized, and said that the dog had never before attacked any but butchers. The gentleman was a butcher!
Since the publication of Mr. Huggins's letter, several other communications have appeared in Nature, showing that all the dogs of this line inherit this instinctive antipathy. Mr. H. G. Brooke writes of a grandson of "Turk:" "Ever since he was a pup he has evinced" this antipathy. A brother of this dog of Mr. Brooke's shows the same feeling, according to Mr. Arthur Ransom, his owner.
Mr. Russel Wallace is inclined to think that these dogs distinguish butchers from other men by the sense of smell, which is very acute in all dogs. He also thinks that it it this sense which enables a dog to find his way back from a distance, though on first making the journey he had been blindfolded, and so prevented from seeing his way. Another correspondent of Nature, writing in confirmation of Mr. Wallace's view, tells of a cat's antipathy to dogs. This animal would "swear," if only stroked by a hand which had directly before touched a dog. Mr. Darwin's purpose in calling attention to the present case of heredity is, to illustrate his theory of instinct as an acquired and transmitted habit.
Changes in River-Beds.—In a report on the subject of a water-supply for the village of Tonkers, New York, published in the January number of the American Chemist, Prof. J. S. Newberry furnishes some interesting facts on the geology of river-beds, that will be of general interest. He says: "It is probably known to you that most of the draining streams of all the region between the Mississippi and the Atlantic are now running far above their ancient beds. This fact was first revealed to me by the borings made for oil in the valleys of the tributaries of the Ohio. All these streams were found to be flowing in valleys, once deeply excavated but now partially filled, and, in some instances, almost obliterated. Further investigation showed that the same was true of the draining streams of New York and the Atlantic slope. For example, the valley of the Mohawk, for a large part of its course, is filled with sand and gravel, to the depth of over two hundred feet. In the Hudson the water surface stands now probably five hundred feet above its ancient level—the old mouth of the Hudson and the channel which leads to it being distinctly traceable on the bottom nearly eighty miles south and east of New York The excavation of these deep channels could only have been effected when the continent was much higher than now. Subsequently it was depressed so far that the ocean-waters stood on the Atlantic coast from one hundred to five hundred feet higher than they now do. During this period of submergence the blue clays in the valley of the Hudson—the 'Champlain clays'—were deposited, and the valleys of all the streams were more or less filled."
Dimensions of New-England Glaciers.—The Glacial and Champlain Epochs in New
