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Show 656 MR. E. R. ALSTON ON NEOTROPICAL SQUIRRELS. [June 18, your Felis lanea in the South-African museum, sent from the same place (the Beaufort-West Karras) by the late Arthur V. Jackson, who killed it himself. Unfortunately I received the skin in very bad condition. The ground-colour is much paler than in your plate, almost white. " Jackson and I thought it an albinism (or rather erythrism) of F. jubata (see Catalogue of S. A. Museum, p. 38, No. 82, Gue-parda jubata, specimen b). At p. 39 of the same Catalogue, I remark that we have had notices of a second species of Maned Leopard, with solid spots and with retractile claws, from Natal. The claws of your animal are not shown in Smit's plate. What is their structure ? " On this last point Mr. Sclater stated that, so far as could be told from examination of the living animals, the claws of Felis lanea resembled those of Felis jubata, being observable when the feet were at rest, and being but slightly extensile. The existence of a second specimen of the animal in the South- African Museum (of which Mr. R. Trimen had also informed Mr. Sclater) was a fact of great interest. Mr. Sclater read some Supplementary Notes on the Curassows (Cracidte), mainly based on specimens which had been received by the Society alive since Mr. Sclater's previous memoir on this subject had been read five years ago. This paper will be published in the Society's ' Transactions.' The following papers were read:- 1. On the Squirrels of the Neotropical Region. B y E D W A R D R. A L S T O N , F.L.S., F.Z.S., &c. [Eeceived June 3, 1878.] (Plate XLI.) No better example of a polymorphic genus can be found than the almost cosmopolitan Sciurus. Even our common European Squirrel assumes such phases of coloration in the north, in the east, and among the Alps that the extremes would undoubtedly be considered perfectly distinct species if the intermediate links were not known. The same variability is found to a still greater extent in many of the Oriental species ; while the polymorphism of some of the North- American forms was pointed out by Professor Baird more than twenty years ago.1 It is only lately that similar critical attention has been given to the Squirrels of the Neotropical Region. Of these no fewer than fifty-nine nominal species have been described by various writers. The late Dr. Gray, in 1867, published a "Synopsis of the Species 1 Mamm. North Amer. pp. 244, 245. |