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Show 1875.] IN T H E SOCIETY'S C O L L E C T I O N . 419 assamensis, or at any rate with the specimen which I determined as such (P. Z. S. 1871, p. 222), and which is the type of M. problematic, Gray (Cat. Monkeys, p. 128), and is now in the British Museum. The fur is rather more reddish in tinge, and the tail is rather shorter *; but I am on the whole of opinion that the two specimens belong to the same species. 3. ATELES MELANOCHIR. (Plates XLVIII. & XLIX.) The Black-handed Spider Monkey, as we call it, is now the commonest species of the genus which we receive alive, our correspondents of the West-Indian Mail Service bringing many specimens from the Central-American Ports. They exhibit great variations in colour, as will be seen from the skins now before us, and from the drawings by Mr. Keulemansof four individuals living in the Monkey-house in January last, which I exhibit. They seem to vary between the form designated A. ornatus by Dr. Gray, of which I have already given a figure (P.Z.S. 1871, pl. xv.), and the nearly uniformly grey form with black hands and feet, which Dr. Gray (Cat. Monkeys, p. 44) has called A. albifrons. The problem is whether these different forms are confined to different localities, or whether they occur together in the same district. To settle this a large series from different localities in Central America should be examined, which as yet I have had no opportunity of doing. But all the light-grey specimens with black hands and feet (such as that figured Plate XLVIII. fig. 11) are, so far as I can ascertain, from Nicaragua or Panama; and the dark form (Ateles ornatus) alone, as Mr. Salvin tells me, occurs on the Pacific coast of Guatemala. I am inclined to believe, therefore, that we have here to deal with a series of local forms of a " not yet differentiated " species. 4. HAPALE MELANURA. (Plate L.) Iacchus melanurus, Geoffr. Ann. d. Mus. xix. p. 120 (1812). Hapale melanura, Wagner, Saugeth. i. p. 127 et v. p. 127. Mico melanurus, Gray, Cat. Monkeys, p. 64. On Nov. 9th of last year we purchased of a dealer a Marmoset in bad coudition, which at the time I took for Hapale argentata (Linn.), and so entered it in the register. It turns out, however, now that it has got clean and in good trim, to belong to the nearly allied and almost equally rare H. melanura, of which we have never previously received a living specimen. Mr. Keulemans's figure (Pl. L.) gives a correct likeness of this peculiar species J. I likewise exhibit a skin of it obtained by Natterer in October, 1826, at Matogrosso in the interior of Brazil, from m y own collection. * Long. corp. 18 poll., caudae 7. t This and a similar specimen received at the same time (both females) were obtained by the late Mr. Richard Avery Rix, Medical Officer to the Chontales Mining Company at St. Domingo, near Libertad in Nicaragua, in 1873, and were presented to the Society by his father, Mr. S. W . Rix, in July 1874. They are still living in good health in the Society's Monkey-house (P. L. S., July 1st, 1875). + Wagner's figure (Saugeth. v. pl. 13) is not at all good. |