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Show 1897.] MR. R. E. HOLDING ON THE HEAD OF A FALLOW DEER. 901 Hadramut, S.E. Arabia, sent to him for examination by Herr J. Menges of Limburg, being one of the specimens upon which Prof. Dr. Th. Noack of Brunswick had lately founded his Capra mengesi (Zool. Anz. no. 510, 1896, and no. 541, 1897). The length of the horns along the upper surface in the specimen was 41*5 inches; the width at the base was about 2 inches, and the depth 3*3 inches. Mr. Sclater remarked that after an examination of this and other specimens of the same animal kindly lent to him by Herr Menges, he and Mr. Thomas had been unable to appreciate the differences upon which the supposed new species had been founded, and were inclined to believe that Capra mengesi was the same as C. sinaitica1, which was known to occur on the western coast of the Bed Sea. Mr. Boulenger exhibited examples of an extremely rare South- American Fish, Vandellla clrrhosa, C. & V., a small loach-like Siluroid, of which only four specimens were known to be in collections, viz., three, the types, without locality, received by the Paris Museum in the beginning of this century from the botanist Vandelli, and a fourth, from the Hyavary Biver, in the Museum of Comp. Zool., Cambridge, Mass. In his ' Study of Fishes,' Dr. Giinther had observed that " the natives of Brazil accuse these fishes of entering and ascending the urethra of persons while bathing, causing inflammation and sometimes death. This requires confirmation." Dr. J. Bach, a medical practitioner of La Plata, who has recently explored the Bio Jurua, and obtained the specimens exhibited, had supplied Mr. Boulenger with the following information respecting them :-The ' Candyru,' as the fish is called, is much dreaded by the natives of the Jurua district, who, in order to protect themselves, rarely enter the river without covering their genitalia by means of a sheath formed of a small coconut-shell, with a minute perforation to let out urine, maintained in a sort of bag of palm-fibres suspended from a belt of the same material. The fish is attracted by the urine, and when once it has made its way into the urethra, cannot be pulled out again owing to the spines which arm its opercles. The only means of preventing it from reaching the bladder, where it causes inflammation and ultimately death, is to instantly amputate the penis ; and at Tres Unidos, Dr. Bach had actually examined a man and three boys with amputated penis as a result of this dreadful accident. Dr. Bach was therefore satisfied that the account given of this extraordinary habit of the ' Candyru ' is perfectly trustworthy. Mr. Boulenger further showed a photograph, taken by Dr. Bach, of two nude Indians wearing the protective purse. Mr. B. E. Holding exhibited a head of a Fallow Deer (Dama vulgaris) from the Drummond Castle herd, and made remarks on the specimen as indicating the intimate association between organic disease and defective horn-growth. It had been noticed that for • See P. Z. S. 1886, p. 316, pl. xxxiii. |
