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Show 832 ON BONES OF A MACACUS FROM MAURITIUS. [Dec. 1, December 4, 1900. Dr. HENRY WOODWARD, F.E.S., Vice-President, in the Chair. The Secretary read an extract from a letter which had been addressed to the Colonial Office by the West India Committee, and sent by the Colonial Office to the Society for information, concerning the proposed introduction of the English Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) or the Indian Mynah (Acridotheres tristis) into St. Kitts, West Indies, in order to check the increase of Grasshoppers, which were causing great damage to the growing crops in that island. Mr. Lydekker exhibited the mounted skin of a female Musk-ox, which Mr. Rowland Ward, F.Z.S., was about to present to the British Museum. It had been obtained from East Greenland, together with the skin of a male, which had also been set up by Mr. Ward's firm. Both specimens differed from the Musk-ox of Arctic America (and probably West Greenland) by the presence of a large patch of long whitish hair in the middle line of the face between the horns and the muzzle, and also by the hair on the rest of the front of the face being grizzled, instead of uniformly dark brown. In the female the hair between tbe bases of the horns was also white, and a little white hair was observable between the closely approximated horns of the bull. Both Mr. Thomas and M r . Lydekker had previously been struck with the presence of tbe white on the face of the young East-Greenland Musk-oxen at Woburn Abbey (see the figure in P. Z. S. 1899, p. 886), but had not been satisfied that the feature might not be due to immaturity alone. Now, however, it was demonstrated to occur in the adult of the East-Greenland race, which Mr. Lydekker proposed to name Ovibos moschatus wardi, taking the above-mentioned female specimen as the type of the subspecies. The race would be sufficiently characterized by the presence of the light grey tuft in the middle of the face of both sexes of the adult. But uot improbably the still larger amount of greyish white, or white, on the face of the calves was also a distinction ; for Mr. Lydekker bad been informed by the manager to Mr. Rowland Ward that in young American Musk-oxen the face (to the best of bis belief) was uniformly brown. It was also suggested that in future the fossil Asiatic and European Musk-ox, which was doubtless subspecifically distinct from both the living American races, might be designated Ovibos moschatus pallantis (De Kay), the name maximus being available for the fossil American form if considered desirable. Dr. Forsyth Major exhibited a few bones of a species of Macacus found associated with the remains of the Dodo in the Mare aux Songes (Mauritius), and made the following remarks :- The bones here exhibited, two radii, right and left, are preserved |