OCR Text |
Show from Fashoda (Hawker Collection), and one from Aboo Zeit, White Nile, sent by Captain Stanley Flower; and these two were identical specifically with Lady William Cecil's specimens*. Type in the Gardens of the Zoological Society of London, presented by Lady William Cecil. Examples of three species have been living throughout the summer and autumn in the same paddock on the canal-bank in the North Garden. The three examples of B. regulorum and one example of B. pavonina keep together, and the similarity in size is obvious, while the different coloration of the neck and body and of the cheek-patches and the large wattles in the Cape form amply distinguish the species. The two examples of B. cecilicn keep together and away from the others. They are smaller, darker in the body, lighter as to the crowns and conspicuously redder as to the cheeks. It would be unwise to attach too much importance as to the natural grouping of birds in a menagerie, but it is striking that B. pavonina consorts with B. regulorum, although the specific distinctness of the two has long been admitted, and not with B. cecilice, with which it has hitherto been confounded. 1 9 0 4 .] ON THE M0USE-1IARES OP THE GENUS OCHOTONA. 2 0 5 4. On the Mouse-Hares of the Genus Ocliotona. B y J. L ew i s B o n h o t e , M.A., F.L .S ., F.Z.S. [Received July 18, 1904.] [The complete account of the new species described in this communication appears here; but since the name and preliminary diagnosis were published in the ‘ Abstract,' the species is distinguished by the name being underlined.- E ditor.] A large and valuable series of Ocliotona from Kashmir, recently sent home by Col. A. E. Ward, has induced me to take up and study the whole genus, so far as the Palsearctic Region is concerned, with the results given below. Owing to the fact that these animals live in countries difficult to reach and, for the most part, inhospitable, the series of skins is somewhat meagre. Nevertheless I have been enabled to come to certain conclusions which may serve as a basis for the future study of the group. Exclusive of the American forms, the genus is found in Southern Russia, extending northwards through Persia, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Thibet to N.E. Siberia. Many of the species are closely allied and some, if not all, have both a summer and a winter pelage. I propose in the first place to divide the genus into three groups, which may be recognised by the shape of the incisive and palatal foramina. * [Since the reading of this paper, four more Crowned Cranes from the White Nile have been deposited at the Gardens. These are examples of B . cecilice.'] |