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Show 634 DR. H. BURMEISTER ON A NEW DOLICHOTIS. [Dec. 7, Mr. H. A. Wickham, dated Piquiahiba, near Santarem, Brazil, July 31, 1875. Mr. Wickham said, " It may interest you to know that the large blue Hyacinth Macaw (Ara hyacinthina) is to be found much nearer Santarem than has been hitherto supposed. I have just been for a three days' hunt through the forest covering the tableland south of this place towards the Curua river. Along the sides of a watercourse we traversed, these birds appeared to be quite common, their peculiar quavering caw being constantly heard ; but so local did they seem to be, that five or six miles further on we neither saw nor heard them." Prof. Owen read the twenty-second of his series of Memoirs ou Dinornis, containing a restoration of the skeleton of Dinornis maximus, Owen. This paper will be published in the Society's Transactions. The following papers were read :- 1. Description of a new Species of Dolichotis. By Dr. H E R M A N N B U R M E I S T E R , Director of the National Museum, Buenos Aires, F.M.Z.S. [Received September 20, 1875.] (Plate LXIX.) The genus Dolichotis, one of the best-marked of the family Ca-viini, differs strikingly from the rest of the group in the great size of its ears. It was founded by Desmarest in 1822, the only known specimen having been first described by Azara under the Spanish name Liebre patagona. This animal is well known its native country under the last name, and is common in the districts of Upper Pata-gouia, near the Rio Negro, and in the western provinces of St. Luis and Mendoza, but was long rare in European collections. The investigations of Darwin, Waterhouse, and myself (Reise durch die La Plata-Staaten, torn. ii. p. 422) have given full particulars as to its habits, external characters, and anatomy, the last-named part of its organization having been shortly described in m y work above referred to. Till now no second species has been known ; and I was therefore surprised on receiving an animal, obtained by Dr. C. Berg, the able inspector of the Public Museum, which resembled the Patagonian Hare, but which indicated by the still greater size of its ears, a new species of Dolichotis. It is strange that an animal as large as a common rabbit should have escaped the notice of scientific men in a country so much visited by travellers of late years ; but as this animal lives in a region remote |
