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Show 636 MR. W. A. FORBES ON THE [Nov. 14, by anthropologists as acrocephaly, a deformity also in M a n associated with the premature consolidation of the same sutures as those affected m the present specimen, and which, it is supposed, has influenced the form of the cranial bones. W e have here, then, in all probability, not a case of specific or even racial distinction, but one of individual variation due to pathological changes at an early period of development. Acrocephaly of a precisely similar type occurs sporadically in men of all races. The Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons possesses good examples of it in a West-African Negro, an Arab, a Polynesian, and an Englishman ; but as I believe it has not hitherto been observed in any of the Anthropoid Apes, the present specimen is one of great interest. The following papers were read :- 1. Supplementary Notes on the Anatomy of the Chinese Water-Deer (Hydropotes inermis). By W . A. F O R B E S, B.A., Prosector to the Society. [Eeceived July 18, 1882.] An adult male of this curious Deer having lately passed through m y hands, it may be advisable to record m y notes on certain of its soft parts, on the condition of which the late Prof. Garrod laid considerable stress in the classification of the Ruminants, but some of which were, I believe, unknown to him, the specimen of Hydropotes described by him l having been a young (in fact still-born) example of the opposite sex. As regards the male organs of generation, the glans penis is an elongated tapering compressed cone, with the urethral opening subterminal, thus closely resembling those of Capreolus, Cervulus', and Elaphodus. There are no traces of Cowper's glands, as is also the case in the first and last of the three genera just named. In these respects, then, Hydropotes resembles most closely Capreolus and Elaphodus, and differs from the Rusine Deer, with which, according to the views of5 Sir Victor Brooke at one time2, in part indorsed by Garrod 3, it was supposed to have perhaps its closest relations. The large " rusiform " Spigelian liver-lobe, which was found by the last-named anatomist in the young of Hydropotes, and the presence of which he adduced as supporting those views, is' however, quite absent in the liver of the present specimen. There is a similarly situated " spurious cystic fossa," containing, however, no gall-bladder, only a minute almost atrophied cord, of apparently vascular nature. The caudate lobe is well developed. In the rumen of the stomach the villi, where best developed, are pretty uniformly filiform, slightly flattened, but not clavate. The 1 Cf. P.Z.S. 1877, p. 789, and Coll. Papers, pp. 422-425 2 P. Z. S. 1872, p. 525. *• Coll Pap. p. 425. |
