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Show 562 MR. P. L. SCLATER ON THE GREATER VASA PARROT. [Dec. 2, we have lately been making to obtain living examples of this rare Marsupial. Of two pairs forwarded to the Society during the present year, one by Mr. Le Souef of Melbourne, and the other by Mr. B. Crowther, the latter only reached us alive. These animals are apparently nearly adult, in good condition, and seem likely to do well. 2. A n example of the Red-tailed Amazon (Chrysotis erythrura), being the second we have received of this rare species, of which the locality has not yet been ascertained (see P. Z. S. 1880, p. 23, pi. ii.). Mr. Sclater called the attention of the Meeting to the death, on the 5th of July last, of the specimen of the Greater Vasa Parrot (Coracopsis vasa), presented by the late C. Telfair, Esq., on July 25, 1830, and which had thus passed nearly 54 years in the Society's Gardens. The sex was determined by the Prosector to be female ; the ovaries had disappeared, but the oviduct (left) was conspicuously present; the large size of the cloaca was remarkable, and it was possible 4hat the phenomenon described in connection with another specimen of this same Parrot (see above, p. 410) might have been due to the protrusion of the cloaca by the female bird. Mr. Sclater further stated that he had been informed by Mr. Thomas Waters, who had passed many years collecting in Madagascar \ that he had upon one occasion shot a Greater Vasa Parrot, which had a dark fleshy mass protruding from the cloaca very much of the same description as that referred to above. Mr. G. E. Dobson, F.R.S., exhibited and made remarks on a diagram designed to illustrate the evolution of the Mammalia according to the system put forward by Prof. Huxley. A communication was read from the Rev. A. M . Norman and the Rev. T. R. R. Stebbing, containing the first portion of a memoir on the Crustacea Isopoda dredged during the expeditions of the ' Porcupine,' ' Lightning,' and • Valorous.' The memoir contained descriptions of the representatives of the three families Tanaidee, Apseudidae, and Anthuridae obtained during the several expeditions. A great number of new forms, chiefly from deep water, including several new genera (Sphyraphus, Alsotanais, and Tana ella among the Tanaidae, and Anthelura, Ilyssura, Cyathura, and Calathura among the Anthuridae), were described. This paper will be printed entire in the Society's 'Transactions.' The following papers were read:- 1 Cf. P. Z. S. 1875, p. G2, et 1879, p. 767 |
