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Show 1874.] T H E SECRETARY O N ADDITIONS T O T H E MENAGERIE. 151 March 3, 1874. Dr. E. Hamilton, Vice-President, in the Chair. The following report by the Secretary on the additions to the Society's Menagerie during the month of February 1874 was read :- The total number of registered additions to the Society's Menagerie during the month of February 1874 was 54, of which 4 were by birth, 16 by presentation, 20 by purchase, 3 by exchange, and 11 received on deposit. The total number of departures during the same period, by death and removals, was 91. The most noticeable additions during the month were :- 1. A Malayan Hornbill (Buceros malayanus), purchased February 17, 1874; new to the Society's collection, this fine species not having been previously received alive. 2. A Python (Python molurus), transmitted to the Society by Mr. Charles James Noble, of Hong-kong, having been caught in his garden on the Chinese mainland, about two miles from Hong-kong. 3. A young male Deer from Northern China, purchased February 27th, 1874. This Deer is evidently the representative in China of Cervus sika of Japan, which it resembles in general habit, though the present example is slightly smaller in stature. It is readily distinguishable, however, from its Japanese ally by its dark reddish face and perfectly white tail and buttocks. Mr. Swinhoe communicated to us a description of this species in June last year, along with that of Cervus kopschi (see P. Z. S. 1873, p. 572). Subsequently he requested me to withdraw the description, not being quite certain as to its distinctness from Cervus sika of Japan. There can, however, I think, be little doubt of the species being distinct from Cervus sika, although it is certainly very closely allied to the smaller form of Cervus mantchuricus, which we have lately received specimens of from Japan. I therefore gladly adopt for it as a temporary designation Mr. Swinhoe's name, Cervus euopis, under which it has already been distinguished in the printed minutes of this Society of the 17th of June last. Mr. Swinhoe has favoured me with the following notes on this Deer:- " In Mr. Vraard's gardens at Shanghai, in an enclosure with a doe C. sika from Japan, was a horned brown buck, which on first glance I took for a buck of the same species in winter coat. Mr. Vraard assured me that the animal was from Newchwang; he had had it three years, and it never got spotted in summer, its hair merely changing to a shorter coat of polished brown. This was on the 27th of March of last year, when its pile was long and somewhat shaggy at the throat; its eye large, and well open towards fore canthus, with scarcely any lachrymal slit; the muzzle large, and confluent with the upper lip; the head short, narrow at the snout, broad at the eyes, with large ears, pale round eyes and on forehead, abounding in long bristles about snout above and below, and about eyelids |
