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Show 460 MR. P. L. SCLATER O N A COLLECTION OF BIRDS. [J June 3, 1879. Prof. Flower, LL.D., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. The Secretary laid upon the table two volumes of original drawings of the birds of India, which had been deposited in the Society's Library by Brigadier-General Andrew Cooke M'Master. The two volumes contained about 270 figures of the birds of the Indian Peninsula, mostly named and arranged after Jerdon's ' Birds of India,' and would be of great use in determining Indian birds. The drawings were stated to have been mostly made by soldiers in General M'Master's house at Secunderabad, under his superintendence ; but some had been executed by the native artists of Southern India at Trichinopoly and Bangalore. Mr. C. L. Jackson, F.Z.S., exhibited the skull of the female Sea-lion (Otaria stelleril) which was lately living in the Southport Aquarium, and which had been killed by the male suddenly jumping from the rock and striking against her. Mr. Sclater laid before the meeting a small collection of birds lately forwarded to him by Dr. Adolf Doring, Professor of Chemistry in the University of Cordova in the Argentine Republic, and made the following remarks on them :- (1) LOPHOSPINGUS PUSILLUS (Burm.) ; Cab. Journ. f. Orn. 1878, p. 195. I quite agree with Dr. Cabanis that the proper situation for this bird is not with Gubernatrix, as placed by Burmeister, but I rather question whether it ought not to be in the same genus as Coryphospinyus griseo-cristatus (Lafr. et d'Orb.). (2) T^NIOPTERA MURINA (Lafr. et d'Orb.) ; Scl. P. Z. S. 1872, p. 541 ; Cab. 1. c. p. 196. Agrees with Mr. Hudson's skins from the Rio Negro of Patagonia. (3) CNIPOLEGUS CINEREUS, Scl. P. Z. S. 1870, p. 58 ; Cab. I. c. p. 197. A female of this interesting species, of which I described the male from a single skin in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution. (4) HABRURA MINIMA (Gould) ; Cab. et Heine, Mus. Hein. ii. p. 53. Hapalura minima, Cab. J. f. O. 1878, p. 197. This is the first example I have ever been able to procure of this scarce and delicate little Tyrannine bird. |