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Show 542 PROF. NEWTON ON SYLVIA NISORIA. [Nov. 1, The following letter, addressed to the Secretary by Lord Lilford, F.Z.S., was read :- "SIR, I think that it may interest some Members of the Society to hear that a pair of Demidoff's Galagos (Galago demidoffi), purchased bv me from Mr. A. E. Jamrach on October 9, 1891, produced a young one on April 28 ult., in a cage here. The infant was blind for several days : its fur was very short and of a lighter colour than that of its parents, which were both most careful and very jealous of their offspring. I am glad to be able to add that we have succeeded in keeping these three very interesting little animals alive and in excellent health to the date of this writing on a diet composed principally of cockroaches, mealworms, bread and milk, with occasionally a little fruit. " I remain, " Lilford Hall, Oundle, " Yours &C, October 19, 1892." " LlLFORD. Prof. F. Jeffrey Bell stated that Mr. Carruthers, Keeper of the Botanical Department of the British Museum, had handed him a fine specimen of Bipalium kewense, found in one of the warm houses at Straffan House, Kildare. So far as Prof. Bell knew, this was the first occasion on which this now widely-spread species had been recorded from Ireland. Prof. Newton, M.A., F.R.S., Vice-President, on exhibiting (on behalf of Mr. John Cordeaux) the skin of an immature Sylvia nisoria, shot at Easington, near Spurn Point in Yorkshire, on the 19th ult., remarked as follows : - " W h e n on the 4th March, 1879 (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1879, p. 219), I had the privilege of calling the notice of tbe Society to what I believed to be the remains of the first example of Sylvia nisoria obtained in England, some of my friends thought me rather rash in placing confidence in a specimen which had remained unrecognized for about forty years, and had in the meanwhile changed owners more than once. M y conduct on that occasion has been in some way justified by the recognition since that time of the occurrence of this species in various parts of the United Kingdom, and I have now to lay before the Society an example which has been killed in Yorkshire within the last fortnight, and sent to me by Mr. Cordeaux for examination. The skin is that of a young bird of tbe present year, and I may add that no doubt can be entertained of its having been shot, as he informs me, at Easington, on the 19th October, 1892, by Mr. Jalland. " I have long wished to refer to this species the ' East Woodhay Warbler,' Sylvia bidehensis, described and figured by the late Hon. and Rev. W . H. Herbert in the edition (published in 1833, anonymously, but commonly associated with his name) of White's * Natural History of Selborne' (pp. 129, 130 note, and titlepage) ; and despite some manifest discrepancies, due perhaps to his having only seen and not procured the birds, I cannot but think that those |
