OCR Text |
Show 1867.] MR. P. L. SCLATER ON OREAS CANNA. 953 as in Zambezia there are so many. Of Butterflies I have not collected above forty kinds; but some of these are very fine. " From Mozambique I have a valuable collection of Snakes and Insects, perhaps nothing new, but representing rare species. " This has not been to m e a year productive in specimens of natural history; but I hope in two months to get off for a few days to Lamoo, where are the Numida vulturina and other nice things. A tame hen of this Numida lived for some time at the French Consulate here, but has been stolen lately; it was an extremely handsome bird. They seem to be common at Lamoo. When the ' Syria ' was there the officers saw several in the market, and killed them for the table, keeping only the skin. I had asked them to look out for it; but they mistook the bird when they saw it, thinking they were to seek for something much more rare." Dr. Peters communicated a note on the relation of the tympanic bone to the mandible in the Marsupials, stating that he had found in a young Halmaturus bennettii (85 millim. long without tail) and in a young Didelphys, that the former bone is inserted into the cavity formed by the angle of the latter. He considered that this temporary glenoid surface is to be compared with the permanent glenoid cavity in birds, or at least to a part of it, as it is well known that relations which are permanent in lower animals are often represented by a temporary condition during the period of evolution in higher classes. In the author's opinion this observation tends to confirm the view that so important and constant a bone as the tympanic is in the Mammalia does not disappear at once in other vertebrates. It also obviates one of the principal objections urged against the homology of the os tympanicum with the quadrate bone of birds and reptiles, viz. that it is never united to the lower jaw; at the same time it explains the peculiar form of the angle of the lower jaw in the Marsupials. Mr. Sclater called attention to the important fact of a fat male Eland (Oreas canna), bred by Lord Hill, at Hawkstone, Shropshire, being exhibited at the cattle-show of the Smithfield Club, and being about to be offered for sale at the close of the show for the market -the first event that had ever happened of this kind. The animal was stated to be a male, aged six years and seven months, and to weigh alive 17601b. In answer to some inquiries on the subject made last summer, Lord Hill had forwarded to Mr. Sclater the following communication:- " I wish I could send you an account of the Elands I have bred and disposed of since I purchased the pair from the Zoological Gardens, as the return would be most satisfactory. Unfortunately I have kept no record, which I have often regretted ; but I can state that I have not had a single case of disease among them, that the females have bred as regularly as possible, except on one occasion (when I used too young a male, about a year and a half old), and that the losses PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1867, No. LXI. |