I am informed that the stone in Salle Church was some time since raised, but that no remains were to be found underneath it. Has the tradition referred to by Miss Strickland been noticed by any other writer? and upon what authority does Burnet say that her remains were placed in an arrow-chest? I may add that Miss S. states that a similar tradition is assigned to a black stone in the church at Thornden on the Hill: but Morant, in his History of Essex, does not notice it.
J. H. P.
TORTOISESHELL TOM CATS.
Can any correspondents of "N. & Q." who may have paid particular attention to natural history, throw any light or grounds for explaining the fact of there, I may almost say, never being instances of a male tortoiseshell cat? for though I have been very lately told that such a one was exhibited in the great display in Hyde Park, yet as I did not witness it myself, I can only use it as the exception which proves the general rule.
Having for the last fifty years been in the constant habit of keeping cats, and having frequently during that time possessed many of a rare and foreign breed, some of which were tortoise-shells of the most beautiful varieties, I have always endeavoured, by mixing the breeds in every way, to procure a male of this peculiar colour; but with the vast number of kittens that during this long period have fallen under my observation, I have invariably found that if there was the slightest appearance of a single black hair on one, otherwise white and orange, so sure would it prove a female; and thus vice versâ, an orange hair appearing on a black and white skin, even in the smallest degree, would immediately proclaim the sex.
I have asked for an elucidation of this curious fact from two of our greatest naturalists of the present day, but without any success; I have racked my own brain even for some plausible mode of accounting for it, but in vain; for it should be observed that this peculiarity or line of demarcation as to sexes does not obtain with other animals, for I have seen what may be called tortoiseshell horses and cows, that is, with the same admixture of colours, and yet they have been indiscriminately of both sexes.
Now it is true we hear occasionally of a tortoiseshell tom cat advertised as having been seen or heard of, but in all these instances a solution of the nitrate of silver has been freely used to aid the imposition, and with all the pains I have taken, I have never been fortunate enough to meet with a bonâ fide ocular demonstration.
Should any of the correspondents of "N. & Q." have it in their power to throw light on this curious fact in natural history, it will much gratify me, even if it should prove that I am making much about nothing.
W. R.
Surbiton.