922 Zoological Society : — 



of the Orkneys ; Mr. Neill says that most of the adult females at 

 Uyea Sound, Unst, were either pregnant, or giving suck to their tooth- 

 less young, in February and March 1805 ; and in January 1812, in 

 the neighbourhood of Paimpol, near the northern extremity of Bre- 

 tagne, M. Lamaoiit found the young seven or eight feet long, and 

 with cuttle-fish, cod, and milk in their stomachs. 



M. F. Cuvier states that this species is remarkable for the sphe- 

 rical form of the anterior part of the head, and that his brother had 

 named it ^' glohiceps, a cause de la forme arrondie de sa tete.'^ But 

 the *'very rounded top of the head," or '* remarkably convex and 

 prominent forehead," included by systematic writers in the specific 

 characters of the Ca'ing Whale, and even among the otherwise judi- 

 cious observations of Mr. Couch, does not properly belong to it ; for 

 the forehead of the skull is flat, as in other porpoises, though the 

 prominent upper muzzle or snout-knob is suflficiently remarkable, and 

 not badly represented in the plates already mentioned. 



But, as I have caused a young skull to be sent to the British Mu^' 

 seum, and Mr. Brabazon has presented a complete skeleton of the 

 adult male animal to the same national collection. Dr. Gray has exa- 

 mined them, and that eminent zoologist has favoured me with the 

 following note of the result : — " I have compared the skeleton with 

 the species which have been usually described under the name of 

 D. glohiceps, and it would appear that the shape of the head of the 

 animal scarcely justified that name ; I can find no difference between 

 the Irish and the other specimens." 



June 14. — Dr. Gray, F.R.S., Vice-President, in the Chair. 



Dr. C^isp exhibited the alimentary canal and ova of a Cuckoo 

 (C canorus), dissected on the 30th of May last. Some facts were 

 observed that were thought of sufficient interest to place before the 

 Society. A perfect egg was found in the oviduct, ready for expul- 

 sion, and about fifty in the ovary ; two of the size of large peas, the 

 others much smaller; a circumstance which tends to confirm the 

 opinion that the eggs of this bird are deposited at intervals of seven 

 or eight days. 



The gizzard was lined with a hair-like substance, which, und'er the 

 microscope, proved to be the spines from the legs of beetles. The 

 gizzard contained a large quantity of the remains of the Cockchafer, 

 and one of the Click-beetles, but no trace of a Caterpillar was dis- 

 covered. In 1834 Mr. Thompson exhibited the gizzard of a Cuckoo 

 at the Society (Proceedings, p. 29), and at first the hairy lining was 

 supposed to be a natural structure, but Prof. Owen, on microscopic 

 examination, believed that the hairs were from the larva of the Tiger- 

 moth {Arctia caja). 



Dr. Crisp thought the subject worthy of future inquiry, and that 

 it would be important to ascertain whether this hairy lining is present 

 in the Caprimulgidce and other insectivorous birds. As regards the 

 spines of the beetles and the hairs of the larva of the Tiger-moth, 

 the microscope shows this important difference, — the hairs are all 



