OCR Text |
Show 1889.] ON SCLERORHYNCHUS ATAVUSJ 419 as well as to fray off at the sides. Its surface also shows many irregular transverse linear depressions. The apex is broad, obtuse, and fissured, and has been subjected to a certain amount of attrition. A fissure extending almost to the base separates a distinct columnar piece from the anterior and left corner of the principal mass. Although its general structure is obviously that of true horn, it appears to bear the same relation to those in front of it that a nail growing from a diseased or injured matrix does to a normal healthy nail. "As the horn of the Rhinoceros is only a greatly modified portion of the animal's skin, specialized for its particular function by the immense development of the papillae of the derm and the exaggerated growth of the epidermic covering, it is not surprising that under some abnormal circumstances, perhaps some local irritation of the skin, a horn should be developed on some other part of the surface from that on which they are usually found. Such an occurrence, however, appears to be rare, and I cannot recall one on record-unless the well-known figure by Albrecht Diirer, copied in so many of the old books on Natural History, of an Indian Rhinoceros with a second horn placed between the shoulders, is founded upon fact. The present specimen is certainly interesting as illustrating the method by which such structures as the horn of the Rhinoceros may have been originally developed. "A sketch of the animal is given in Sir John C. Willoughby's lately published work on ' East Africa and its Big Game : The Narrative of a Sporting Trip from Zanzibar to the Borders of the Masai.' " The Secretary exhibited a skin of an albino variety of the Cape Mole-Rat (Georychus capensis), forwarded to the Society by the Rev. G. H . R. Fisk, C.M.Z.S., of Capetown, and read the following extracts from a letter received from Mr. Fisk on the subject:- "I send a skin, prepared for mounting, of a White Mole-Rat, a male. It was given to m e alive by Mr. Hiddingh, who so kindly gave me the one which I sent to you some time ago. This one lived for about a week after capture and fed freely, giving no signs of pain ; but, after death, I found that it had been too much hurt by the trap to recover the injury. I put it into the hands of a taxidermist to be properly prepared, thinking that you might like to set it up and place it near the cage of the living animal, so that visitors might gain an idea of the peculiarities of the creature." Mr. A. Smith Woodward, F.Z.S., exhibited a fragment of the rostrum of an extinct Saw-fish, Sclerorhynchus atavus, kindly forwarded to him for examination by Prof. Albert Gaudry, and made the following remarks :-• " The specimen is shown, of the natural size, in the accompanying drawing (p. 450), and, like the type in the British Museum, was obtained from the Upper Cretaceous series of Mount Lebanon. It doubtless pertains to a smaller individual than the last-named fossil, and is interesting as showing the extreme slenderness of the rostrum |