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Show 1904.] OX A XEW SPECIES OF FRUIT-BAT FROM FERNANDO PO. 371 March 1, 1904. Dr. A. GUNTHER, F.R.S., Yice-President, in the Chair. The following motion, of which notice had been given at the Meeting held on February 16th, was put to the Meeting by Mr. R. I. Pocock, seconded by Mr. R. H. Burne, and declared to be lost by a very large majority :- " That it is desirable to alter the hour of the Meetings for Scientific Business from 8.30 P.M. to 5 P.M." Dr. A. Gunther, F.R.S., exhibited and made remarks upon some specimens of hybrids between Reeves' Pheasant (Phasianus reevesi) 3 and the Silver Pheasant (Gennceus nycthemerus) $ . Mr. Oldfield Thomas exhibited the skull of a Buffalo which, with several others, had been obtained in Ankole, S.W. Uganda, during Col. Delme-Radcliffe's delimitation of the Anglo-German Boundary. The horns of this buffalo were remarkably broad and fiat in the palm, and their bases diverged considerably from each other in front, contrasting in these respects with those of the true Bubcdus caffer of South Africa, which were very convex on the palm, while their inner edges (close to each other in old bulls) were quite parallel. The animal was of considerable size, the skull of the type-specimen measuring 505 mm. in basal length, while its horns were 1106 mm. (= 43| in.) between the most distal points of their outer convexity, and 295 mm. (= 11| in.) across the palm in a straight line, measured with callipers. An old female skull was 455 mm. in basal length, with a greatest horn-spread of 842 mm., the palms being 141 m m . broad. All the specimens sent were closely similar, and Mr. Thomas thought that a subspecific name should be given to the animal, which represented a northern race of B. caffer, fully as large as the latter, but tending in the flatness of its horns towards the smaller Bubcdus cequinoctialis Blyth, of the Upper Nile. Mr. Thomas therefore suggested for it the name of Bubalus caffer radcliffei (cf. Abstr. P. Z. S. 1904, No. 4, p. 13, March 8) in honour of its donor. Mr. Oldfield Thomas also exhibited a Fruit-Bat which had been obtained by the expedition to Fernando Po subsidised by the Duke of Bedford and Mrs. Percy Sladen. This Bat belonged to the rare genus Scotonycteris, but did not PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1904, YOL. I. No. XXV. 25 |
