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Show 716 DR. A. GtJNTHER ON FISHES [Jliue 6, the form usually known as Cervus verticornis Dawk. The cranial portion of the skull was well preserved; the antlers had a spread of 6 feet, measured iu a straight line, and the atlas and axis vertebrae had been found associated with the skull. The specimen was of interest, not only from its unusually perfect condition, but as throwing further light on the characters and affinities of the species, remains of which had been found in large numbers in the Forest-Bed series, but had usually consisted solely of the basal part of the antlers. The restorations which had been published of the distal portions of the antlar-* were quite misleading, and were responsible for the statement commonly made that the antlers of this species are short and thick and that the crown ends in two points. The antlers were, on the contrary, comparable in their general proportions with those of the Fallow Deer and Irish Deer, and ended moreover in a broadly palmated crown, the edge of which was gently scalloped instead of being produced into long snags. The arrangement of the tines and of the palmation agreed closely with that in the species just mentioned, thus confirming the view that the Forest-Bed form was closely related to its ancestors. The question of nomenclature was considered, with the result that C. verticornis of the Forest-Bed was probably identical with C. camutorum Laug., and was a synonym of C. belgrandi, Lart. This paper will be printed in full in the ' Transactions.' The following papers were read:- 1. An Account of a Collection of Fishes made by M r . R. B. N . Walker, C.M.Z.S., on the Gold Coast. B y Dr. A . G U N T H E R , F.R.S., F.Z.S. [Received April 22, 1809.] (Plates XLI.-XLV.) Mr. R. B. N. Walker, C.M.Z.S., to whom we are indebted almost for the first information on the freshwater fishes of tbe Gaboon country1, has brought home a small collection which he formed during a visit to the Gold Coast in the course of last year, and which he has kindly entrusted to m e for examination, with instructions to deposit a selection of the specimens in the Natural History Museum. The collection, small as it is, proved to be of considerable interest, not only because it contained some forms new to this fauna 1 See Ann. L Mag. N. H. 1867, p. 109. |
