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Show 1896.] ON A PORTRAIT OF ANTHROPOPITHECUS GORILLA. 597 (see fig. 1, p. 595), the hind parts of the males extending beyond of the females. On the following morning Tennant, the keeper, arrived in time to witness the mode in which the eggs were deposited. The oviduct of the female protruded from her body more than an inch in length, and the bladder-like protrusion being retroverted passed under the belly of the male on to her own back. The male appeared to press tightly upon this protruded bag and to squeeze it from side to side, apparently pressing the eggs forward one by one on to the back of the female. By this movement the eggs were spread with nearly uniform smoothness over the whole surface of the back of the female, to which they became firmly adherent (see fig. 2, p. 596). On the operation being completed, the males left their places on the females, and the enlarged and projected oviduct gradually disappeared from one of the females. In the other female, the oviduct appears not to have discharged the whole of the eggs. At any rate it remains distended, as shown in the figure, but is gradually shrinking in size l. May 19, 1896. Sir W. H. FLOWER, K.C.B., LL.D., F.E.S., President, in the Chair. Mr. Sclater exhibited a Daguerreotype portrait of what was believed to be the first Gorilla (Anthropopithecus gorilla) that was ever brought alive to Europe. This portrait had been lent to Mr. Bartlett by Mr. Alexander Fairgrieve, formerly connected with Wombwell's Menagerie. The animal in question was imported to Liverpool from the Congo by the late M r . Hulse, animal dealer, in 1855. It was a young female, and was called "Jenny." Mr. Hulse sold it to Mrs. Wombwell, w h o kept it several months and made a pet of it. O n its death the body was sent to the late Charles Watertonof "Walton Hall, who preserved the skin and sent the skeleton to the Leeds Museum. Out of the skin of this Gorilla, "Waterton manufactured a figure with two horns on the head, which he called Martin Luther, and exhibited in his gallery at Walton Hall. Mr. Bartlett, on seeing this stuffed figure at Walton Hall, had immediately recognized it as being that of a young Gorilla. Mr. Sclater called attention to the fact that the large chalk drawing of the Gorilla hung in the Society's Meeting-room represented this same specimen, which was stated on the label of the picture to have been living in M r . Wombwell's Menagerie. 1 [May 22nd.-This specimen died, and was sent to the British Museum. Mr. Boulenger examined it and kindly reports as follows :-" The uterus contained a good number of ripe ova, so that only a few could have been laid when the male abandoned the female. The ovipositor, formed by the cloaca, was still protruding and much inflamed. It m ay be deduced from the observation made by Tennant, that fecundation must take place before the extrusion of the eggs, and it is probable that the ovipositor serves in the first instance to collect the spermatozoa which would penetrate into tbe oviducts, the eggs being laid in the impregnated condition, as in tailed Batrachians."-P. L. S.] |