OCR Text |
Show 482 THE SECRETARY O N PELAMIS BICOLOR. [May 19, never been opened, is still available in case of a final appeal. I would suggest that if there is any one still in doubt on the subject, any one who still thinks that the right cardiac valve of Apteryx differs from that of ordinary birds and is provided with chordae tendineae attached to membranous flaps, he should be asked to open Sir Richard Owen's hitherto unpenetrated third specimen at a meeting of this Society. The first and the second specimens I have opened by an appropriate incision in the right ventricular wall, in the presence of Professor Bourne, and had no difficulty in bringing the right cardiac valve in each heart into full view. It presented none of the peculiar features attributed by Sir Richard Owen to the right cardiac valve of these identical specimens which Sir Richard believes himself to have examined, but which neither he nor any one else had seen until I opened up the ventricular wall to-day (April 24th, 1885). The valve was entirely fleshy as in an ordinary bird (compare figs. 1, 2, with figs. 3, 4). There were no radiating fibrous cords binding the mid-region of the valve to the ventricular wall, such as are shown in Sir Richard Owen's drawing. There was no departure from the typical Avian right cardiac valve; no such departure has been seen in any specimen of the Apteryx-heart which has been opened. It seems important that the actual condition of the right cardiac valve in Apteryx should be represented pictorially, and I therefore give here two drawings of that structure taken from the specimen in m y possession (figs. 3 & 4, p. 479), and also for comparison, two views of the right cardiac valve of the Common Fowl (figs. 1 & 2, p. 478), and of the Ornithorhynchus (rigs. 5 & 6, p. 480) for comparison. May 19, 1885. F. Du Cane Godman, Esq., F.R.S., F.Z.S., in the Chair. A communication was read from Prof. J. von Haast, C.M.Z.S., containing a description of some fossil remains of a species of Dinornis remarkable for its small size, and apparently previously undescribed, which he proposed to call Dinornis oweni. The remains in question, at present deposited in the Auckland Museum, had been obtained near Whangarei, N ew Zealand. Prof, von Haast added some remarks on Dinornis crassus, Owen. This paper will be printed entire in the Society's ' Transactions.' The Secretary read the following extract from a letter addressed to him by the Rev. G. H. R. Fisk, C.M.Z.S., dated Breakwater, Cape Town, January 27th, 1885 :- " I wish to mention that a Snake was taken amongst the rocks in a pool of water and seaweed at the entrance to Table Bay, which, from the description given of it by those who found it, I have every reason to believe was a ' Pelamis bicolor.'' It was found by the |