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Show 1886.] MR. O. THOMAS ON CRANIAL VARIATION. 125 took refuge amongst the leaves of a fresh plant. Although they have not fed, they seem to be lively and doing well \ Mr. Sclater exhibited a specimen of the new Paradise Bird, Paradisornis rudolphi, lately discovered in the Owen Stanley Mountains of New Guinea by Mr. Hunstein, and described and figured by Drs. Finsch and Meyer in a recent number of the 'Zeitschrift fur die Gesammte Ornithologie' (1885, p. 385), and pointed out the characters in which it differs from typical Paradisea. The Secretary exhibited on behalf of Mr. L. Taczanowski, C.M.Z.S., the skin of an Owl from the south-east of the Ussuri country, on the frontiers of Corea, which appeared to be referable to Bubo blakistoni, Seebohm, P. Z. S. 1883, p. 466, and Ibis, 1884, p. 42 et p. 183, pi. vi. Two adult females of this Owl had been obtained by Mr. J. Kalinowsky, during his recent stay in Kamtschatka, from the environs of the river Sidemi in Russian Mantchuria, on the frontiers of Corea, where they were collected in the latter part of May 1885. They appeared to agree with Japanese specimens of B. blakistoni in the National Collection, where Mr. Sharpe had kindly made the comparisons. Mr. Edward Gerrard, Jun., exhibited specimens of the heads and skulls of two African Rhinoceroses (Rhinoceros bicornis and R. simus), obtained by Mr. Selons in Mashuna-land, and mounted for the South-African Museum, Capetown. Prof. Ray Lankester exhibited and made remarks on a drawing of a restoration of Archaeopteryx. The following papers were read:- 1. Notes on a striking instance of Cranial Variation due to Age. By O L D F I E L D T H O M A S , Natural History Museum. [Eeceived February 16, 1886.] (Plate XL) Dr. Gulliver, of St. Thomas's Hospital, has recently submitted to me for determination three skulls from Canada, collected by Mr. Hayden. The skulls turn out to be referable to the fairly common Canadian Marten or Pekan (Mustela pennanti, Erxl.), but they show to such a remarkable extent the cranial changes that occur in 1 See Miss Hopley's account of this event in ' Nature,' vol. xxxiii. |