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Show 160 EXHIBITION OF FEMALE GEOCICHLA LAYARDI. [Mar. 6, dealer in Liverpool, Feb. 14th, and said to have been received from Para, being the first example of this very well-marked spieces of Asio (sive Otus) which I have seen alive. 2. A Rhea, purchased at Liverpool, Feb. 14th, along with the above-mentioned Owl and other animals. This bird appears to belong to the species which, in 1860,1 distinguished as Rhea macrorhyncha (Trans. Zool. Soc. iv. p. 356, pl. xlix.), from an example then living in the Society's Gardens, which had been originally obtained at the same port. There can be no question, I think, that we have here to deal with a locally isolated race of Rhea americana, probably existing somewhere in the campos of the interior of N.E. Brazil, whence individuals are generally brought down to Para. The present specimen is in very poor condition, but, so far as a cursory examination of it in its present state can decide, presents all the characters assigned to R. macrorhyncha in m y description and figure. [P.S.-Since I read this report, Mr. Salvin has called m y attention to the following passage in Stedman's ' Narrative of an Expedition to Surinam ' (London, 1806), which seems to indicate the existence of a Rhea in that country :- " The largest bird in Guiana is there called tuyew, and by others emu. It is a middle species between the Ostrich and the Cassowarv (as I was told ; for I never saw one in the country). It is said to be about six feet high from the top of the head to the ground : its head is small, its bill flat, the neck and limbs long, the body round, without a tail, and of a whitish-grey colour; its thighs are remarkably thick and strong ; and it has three toes on each foot, while the Ostrich has but two. This bird, it is said, cannot fly at all, but runs very swiftly, and, like the Ostrich, assists its motion with its wings. It is mostly found near the upper parts of the rivers Marawina and Seramica."] Mr. E. W. H. Holdsworth, F.Z.S., exhibited a specimen of Geocichla layardi, Walden, which had been obtained in 1876, at Jaffna, in the north of Ceylon. It differed from the type specimen described by Lord Walden in 1870, the only previous example recorded, in having the orange parts less bright, and the back and wing strongly tinged with olive. As the latter character is distinctive of the female in some other species of this group of Thrushes, there was every reason to believe that both sexes were represented in the only two examples known of this peculiar Ceylonese species. The following papers were read:- "Tecc-lotl" of Fernandez, can be fairly construed as applicable to this Owl is very doubtful indeed ; but as to continue to use the term americanus would lead SB'^^^LT' PerhapS' t0 ad°pt Gmelin'S - »*- for |