Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/139

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PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES.
113

Zoological Society of London.

February 6, 1877.—Osbert Salvin, Esq., F.R.S., in the chair.

The Secretary read a report on the additions that had been made to the Society's Menagerie during the month of January.

Mr. Sclater exhibited and made remarks on some unnoticed characters in the original and unique specimen of Comrie's Manucode (Manucodia Comrii, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1876, p. 459).

Mr. Howard Saunders exhibited a specimen of the Panay Sooty Tern (Sterna anæstheta), which had been obtained on the English coast, and was the first recorded occurrence of this bird in the British Islands.[1]

Dr. A. Günther read a memoir on the Tortoises collected by Commander Cookson, R.N., during the visit of H.M.S. 'Peterel' to the Galapagos Islands. The main results of Commander Cookson 's visit consisted in giving us a knowledge of the Tortoise of Abingdon Island (Testudo Abingdoni) and of the Tortoise of the North of Albemarle Island (T. microphyes).

A communication was read from Mr. Robert Collett, containing an account of his observations on Phylloscopus borealis, as met with on the Varanger Fjord and adjacent parts of Finmark.

Mr. Sclater read a note on an apparently new species of Spur-winged Goose of the genus Plectropterus, proposed to be called P. niger, founded on two examples living in the Society's Gardens, which had been presented to the Society by Lieut.-General A.V. Cunningham.

Prof. A.H. Garrod read a paper on the mechanism of the invertebral substance and on some effects resulting from the erect position of man.

A communication was read from Sir Victor Brooke, containing notes on the small Rusine Deer of the Phihppine Islands, and giving the description of a new species proposed to call Cervus nigricans, of which a female example was recently living in the Society's Gardens.

A paper by Mr. O. Salvin and Mr. Ducane Godman was read, giving the description of twelve new species and a new genus of butterflies from Central America.

Dr. Günther gave an account of the Zoological Collection made during the visit of H.M.S. 'Peterel' to the Galapagos Islands, which had been worked out by himself and his assistants in the Zoological Department of the British Museum.

Mr. R.B. Sharpe communicated the description of a new species of Pheasant of the genus Lobiophasis and of a new species of Pitta from the Lawas River, N.W. Borneo. Mr. Sharpe proposed to call the former L. castaneicaudatus, and the latter, Pitta Ussheri.P.L. Sclater.


  1. See: Saunders, Howard—"On the Occurrence of the Smaller Sooty Tern at the Mouth of the Thames", in: The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1, issue 5 (May 1877), p. 213–216 (Wikisource-ed.)