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Show 258 LETTER FROM MR. W. H. HUDSON. [Mar. 21, March 21, 1871. R. Hudson, Esq., F.R.S., in the Chair. The following report by the Secretary on the additions to the Society's Menagerie during the month of February 1871 was read :- The total number of registered additions to the Society's Menagerie during the month of February 1871 was 45, of which 9 were by birth, 8 by presentation, 26 by purchase, and 1 by exchange, 1 animal having been received only on deposit. The total number of departures during the same period, by death and removals, was 100. Amongst the additions almost the only one of special interest was two pairs of a small West-African Finch (Spermestes fringilloides*), purchased February 14. Our Superintendent has already given us full particulars of the birth of the young Hippopotamus, which occurred February 21. Mr. Sclater exhibited a skin of the Ceylonese Prinia spoken of by Mr. W . Vincent Legge in a communication to the Society read on November 1, 1870*1* last, and now forwarded for examination by that gentleman. Lord Walden had pronounced the specimen to be P. socialis of Sykes, not differing from examples collected in Coorg and Caudeish. Dr. E. Hamilton, in corroboration of Mr. Swinhoe's remarks (P. Z. S. 1870, p. 91) on the prolific nature oi Hydropotes inermis, read the following extract from a letter lately received from Mr. J. A. Amott of Shanghai: - " Do you know that the doe of this species has constantly five or six young ones at a birth ? W e often find it so when the animal is opened, as is customary immediately after it is shot." Dr. Hamilton observed that this corroboration of Mr. Swinhoe's observations was important. As a rule the various species of the genus Cervus usually only have one calf at a time. Cervus dama sometimes brings forth two, and occasionally, though very rarely, three ; Cervus capreolus never more than two. It would be interesting to know whether the nearest allies to this genus (viz. Cervus pudu of Chili, and Moschus moschiferus of North-eastern Asia) have this peculiarity, as it was certainly a distinct feature in the Hydro-poles. The following (eleventh) letter "J; on the Ornithology of Buenos Ayres by Mr. W . H. Hudson, C.M.Z.S., was read:- " Buenos Ayres, 2nd September, 1870. " SIR,-Besides the Black-headed Gull (Larus cirrhocephalus), * Ploceus fringilloides, Lafr. Mag. de Zool. 1853, pl. 48 t P. Z. S. 1870, p. 673. | For preceding letter, see antea, p. 4. See also Sclater and Salvin, P. Z S 1868, p. 137, et 1869, p. 158. |