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Show 358 PROF. W. H. FLOWER ON THE EDENTATA. [Apr. 18, in tint on the chest, breast, and under tail-coverts; bill brown, whitish on the lower margin and on the under mandible; no ring round the eye; ear-coverts and sides of the face like the head. Length of skin 3*7 inches, wing 2*5, tail 1*9, tarsus 0*7; bill from forehead 0*5, from anterior margin of nasal groove 0*3, from gape 0*6. The flank-plumes are rather elongated and somewhat decomposed. Hab. Aru Islands ? April 18, 1882. Prof. Flower, LL.D., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. The following report on the additions to the Society's Menagerie during the month of March 1882 was read by the Secretary :- The total number of registered additions to the Society's Menagerie during the month of March 1882 was 54, of which 26 were by presentation, 16 by purchase, 3 by birth, and 9 were received on deposit. The total number of departures during the same period, by death and removals, was 81. The most noticeable addition during the month was :- A Radiated Fruit-Cuckoo (Carpococcyx radiatus) from Sumatra, purchased March 31st. The gait and actions of this remarkable Ground-Cuckoo remind one more of a Gallinaceous bird or a Gallinule than of any of its arboreal relatives of the same family. The form is quite new to the Society's Collection. The following papers were read :- I. On the Mutual Affinities of the Animals composing the Order EDENTATA. By WILLIAM H E N R Y FLOWER, LL.D., F.R.S., Pres. Zool. Soc, &c. [Eeceived April 4, 1882.] The name assigned to this order by Cuvier is often objected to as inappropriate, as, though some of its members are edentulous, others have very numerous teeth ; and the Linnean name Bruta is occasionally revived by modern authors. But that term is quite as objectionable, especially as the group to which Linneus applied it is by no means equivalent to the order as now understood, but contained all the animals then known which are comprised in the modern orders Proboscidea, Sirenia, and Edentata, together with the Walrus, one of the Carnivora. If retained at all, it should rather belong to the Proboscidea, as Elephas stands first in the list of genera of Bruta in the ' Systema Naturae,' and was probably in the mind of Linnseus when he assigned the name to the group. |