Societies and Academies

Abstract

LONDON Zoological Society, January 4.—Prof. W. H. Flower, LL.D., F.R.S., president, in the chair.—Mr. Sclater exhibited and made remarks on a skin of the Southern Merganser (Mergus australis) from the Auckland Islands, belonging to the collection of Baron Anatole von Hügel.—Prof. A. Newton, M.A., F.R.S., exhibited on behalf of Prof. Alphonse Milne-Edwards, F.M.Z.S., an egg of Coriama cristata, laid last summer in the Jardin des Plantes, and possibly the first ever seen of which the parentage was certainly known, though an egg, also exhibited by Prof Newton, had, been for many years in the collection of Mr. H. F Walter.—Dr. Albert Gunther, F. R.S., read an account of.the zoological collections made by Dr. R. W. Coppinger, R.N., during-the survey of H.M.S. Alert in the Straits of Magellar and on the coast of Patagonia, and called attention to the mosi remarkable species represented in the various groups, which hac been worked out by himself and his assistants in the Zoologica Department of the. British Museum. Dr. Günther also called attention to several interesting cases of the similarity of forms in these collections to known forms of the Arctic regions and of. the Australian seas.—A communication was read from Prof. J. O Westwood, containing:the descriptions of some new exotic species of moths of the genera. Castnea and Saturnia.—A seconi paper by Prof. Westwood contained observations on two Indian butterflies—Papilio castor and P. pottux.—Prof. W. H. Flower, F.R.S., described the skull of a very large elephant seal (Macrorhinus lconinus), lately received in the Museum of the College of Surgeons from the Falkland Islands, and discussed the questions of affinities and systematic position of this animal among the Pinnipeds. Prof. Flower arrived at the conclusion from an examination of its dental, cranial, and limb characters, and from some other points in its anatomy, that the elephant seal is the member of the group the farthest removed from the terrestrial carnivora and showing most cetacean analogies. He also considered that at present there is no eviderce of the existence of more than one species of the genus.—Dr. A. Günther read some notes on the species of insectivorous mammals belonging to the genus Rhynchocyon and Petrodromus, and described two new species of the former genus, proposed to be called R. macrurus (from the Rovurna River), and R. chrysopygus (from the Mombaça River).