Acquisitions at the Natural History Museum

Abstract

AMONG the chief recent acquisitions in the Zoological Department of the British Museum (Natural History) are 60 mammals and 590 birds obtained by the Vernay-Lang Expedition to the Kalahari Desert, presented by Mr. A. S. Vernay; the mammals include specimens of 11 forms recently described as being new to science by Mr. Austin Roberts of the Transvaal Museum. Another important gift received from Mr. Vernay is a collection of 184 mammals, 29 reptiles, 34 fishes, and 500 butterflies obtained by Capt. Beresford Holloway, who accompanied Mr. Vernay on his recent expedition to the Malay Peninsula. This collection comprises many rare species, including a specimen of the rare Rhinoceros sondaicus, which is now being mounted, at the expense of the donor, for exhibition in the Museum. Purchases for the Department of Geology include a specimen of the teeth of an extinct shark, Edestus, from Devonian rocks of Rhenish Prussia. The median teeth of Edestus, instead of falling away after use as in all other sharks, remained attached to their successors, forming in the course of time an external dental spiral which must have hung over the point of the jaws and sometimes contained no less than 150 teeth. Prof. G. Vibert Douglas has collected and presented to the Department of Minerals a large series of rocks illustrating the geology and mineralisation of several mines in the ‘copper belt’ of Northern Rhodesia and Katanga. Samples of volcanic dust which fell after the recent eruptions (April 11–12) in the Andes have been presented by the Times Publishing Co. and by Messrs. H. W. Nelson, Ltd.