Sir,

I enclose a slip from the Morning Star,¹ lest the fact it records should escape your attention; and, I will add my attestation to its substantial correctness. That the animal has no skin is, of course, not strictly true; but it has cast its entire skin from the snout to the tail, together with subcutaneous fat of from one to three inches in thickness, leaving a second skin now exposed to the external air. The animal was in a stye to be fatted, but about three weeks ago was observed to be off its appetite, and portions of the skin of the belly peeled off; but the owner could not foresee that the whole skin was to slough off. However, one morning he found the skin, with fat as aforesaid, lying in the stye, having obviously, come off in a mass during the night, and the pig, like the snake in Virgil,² resplendent in a delicate new attire. The former skin was black and bristly, the new one was, at first, entirely flesh coloured but is changing to black by degrees.— The animal, after the crisis was over, recovered its appetite, and, to all appearance, has now naught the matter with it. The skin is preserved. Many persons have visited it, but, I believe, no one as yet of natural historical knowledge.

You may recollect me as having some year or two since pointed out to you a passage from Aristotle, shewing that “Natural Selection” was known to the ancients.³

I remain, Sir, | your very ob^t. serv^t, | Clair J. Grece.

Redhill Surrey

12^th. Nov^r. 1866.

P.S. Should you like to see the animal, it is on the premises of one M^r. Jennings,⁴ a baker, in Horley Row about one mile north of the Horley Station of the London and Brighton railway.

A fly might not be procurable at that station, so that you might prefer to alight at the Redhill Station, where vehicles are readily obtainable, and whence it is about four miles to the southward.

C.J.G.