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Show 1005.] ON THE WHITE-MANED SEROW. 329 for tlie West African White-thiglied Guereza (C. vellerosus), text-fig. 58, appears to exhibit a kind of retrograde development in these respects. The body, for instance, has entirely lost the mantle of long white hair and the tail its white " flag," while the white of the perineal patch has spread on to the hinder and outer sides of the thighs. In this case we find, indeed, a practical reversion to the type of the Black Guereza, wuth the exception that the band on the forehead, the sides of the face and throat, the thighs, and almost the whole of the tail have become white, while the long hair has entirely disappeared from the face. That the colouring and special development of the long hair in the White-tailed Guereza form a protective modification, there seems to be little doubt. Whether, however, the colour-phases and hair-growth in the other forms are of a protective nature, or are merely due to what is commonly called sexual selection, must be left for those to decide who have the opportunity of seeing these beautiful monkeys in their native haunts. 2. Tlie White-maned Serow. By R . L y d e k k e r . [Received November 11,1905.] (Plate V III.*) In 1888 the very appropriate name of Nemorhcedits argyrochcetes was bestowed by the Rev. P&re Heude t on a large and strikingly coloured species of Serow inhabiting the mountains of Central China in the neighbourhood of Che-kiang in the Upper Yang-tse-kiang district. Later, a fuller notice, with a figure of the skull, was given by the same writer %; while in 1890 Dr. A. Henry § contributed a note on skins of the species which had come under his notice while in China. Hitherto, however, so far as I am aware, no coloured figure of the entire animal has appeared ; and since the colouring is of a very remarkable and striking type, somewhat different from that of the ordinary Serow, I think the opportunity ought to be taken of remedying this deficiency. This opportunity has heen afforded by the recent addition to the Collection of the British (Natural History) Museum of a mounted male specimen of this Serow and of the Tibetan Takin (Budorcas taxicolor tibetana). They were acquired by Rowland Ward, Ltd., from a French dealer, by whom they were stated to have come from Tibet; but I should think that Sze-chuen, or thereabouts, is more probably their place of origin, unless, indeed, the Serow was procured still farther east. The two are, I believe, the first representatives of their respective kinds ever received in England, and it is quite probable that in the case of the Serow this statement may be extended to European museums in general. * For explanation of the Plate, see p. 331. f Mem. Hist. Nat. Emp. Chinois, vol. ii. p. 4, note (1888). X T. c. p. 228, pi. xxxi. (1890). § Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1890, p. 93. 2 3 * |