Acquisitions at the British Museum (Natural History)

Abstract

THROUGH the kindness of the Rev. T. H. Wilson, of Inkongo in the Sankuru district of the Congo, the Museum has received a female specimen of the recently discovered peacock-like bird, Afropavo congensis. This bird was first discovered by Dr. James P. Chapin, of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, in 1936, who found two mounted examples in the Ethnological Department of the Tervueren Museum, Brussels, where they had been overlooked. Later the authorities of that Museum received further specimens from the Congo. Dr. Chapin visited the area and his native hunters brought in two more, while he himself had a fleeting view of one bird in the forest. The interesting feature of this bird is that in some of its characters it resembles the peacock, a bird which is confined to Asia. Specimens of diamondiferous gravels and concentrates have been received from the Geological Survey of the Gold Coast Colony, and Prof. Takeo Watanabé has presented a specimen of the new mineral kotoite—a magnesium borate occurring as a rock-forming mineral in limestone in Korea. A magnificent group of yellow and green zoned crystals of fluor from a mine in Weardale has been purchased and the opportunity has been taken to re-arrange the exhibit of fluor in the pavilion of the Mineral Gallery. Mr. P. M. Game, a member of the staff of the Department of Minerals, who recently returned from an expedition to West Greenland under the leadership of Dr. H. I. Drever, has brought back a collection of about three hundred specimens of rocks and minerals from Ubekendt Island, Umanak Fjord, a region in which no previous geological work had been done.