418 Zoological Society, 



appearance, the effect of its being minutely decussated with concen- 

 tric and radiating striae, and covered with an exquisite thin shining 

 horny epidermis, disposed in fine concentric cords, abruptly termi- 

 nating at the posterior area. The posterior portion, accordingly de- 

 stitute of epidermis, is very thickly rayed with ribs of short com- 

 pressed spines, as if the delicately clad surface of the shell had been 

 thus far ploughed up, as it were, into furrows. 



Only two odd valves of this pre-eminently beautiful shell were ob- 

 tained, and, singularly, in localities very remote from each other ; 

 one was dredged at the depth of forty fathoms in the Sooloo Seas, be- 

 tween the islands of Borneo and Mindanao ; the other in the Yellow 

 Sea, thirty degrees north, at one of the islands of the Korean Archi- 

 pelago. 



March 23. — ^William Yarrell, Esq., Vice-President, in the Chair. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. Note on the Breeding of the Otter in confinement in the 

 Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park, in 1846. By James 

 Hunt, Head Keeper. 



The female Otter was presented to the Society by Lady Rolle on 

 the 4th of February 1840, being apparently at that time about three 

 months old. She remained without a male till the 11th of March 

 1846, when a large male was presented to the Society by the Rev. 

 P. M. Brunwin, of Braintree, Essex, in whose possession it had been 

 for some months, and had been kept in a cellar. His weight when 

 first taken was 21 lbs., but he was not above half that weight when 

 he arrived at the Gardens, having wasted much in confinement and 

 become very weak in the loins, from which he soon recovered after 

 his arrival. About a month after his. arrival there was a continual 

 chattering between him and the female during the night, which lasted 

 for four or five nights ; but they did not appear to be quarrelling. 

 Nothing further was observed in their manners or in the appearance 

 of the female to make me think she was with young, until the morn- 

 ing of the 1 3th of August, when the keeper that has the charge of 

 them went to give them a fresh bed, which he does once a week ; 

 while in the act of pulling out the old bed he observed two young 

 ones, apparently five or six days old, and about the size of a full- 

 grown rat : he immediately put back the bed, with the young on it, 

 and left them. On the 21st the mother removed them to the second 

 sleeping- den, at the other end of their enclosure, and several times 

 after she was observed to remove them from one end of the house to 

 the other, by pushing them before her on a little straw ; her object in 

 removing them appeared to be to let them have a dry bed ; on the 

 9th of September they were first seen out of the house ; they did not 

 go into the water, but crawled about, and appeared very feeble. 



On the 26th of September they were first seen to eat fish, and 

 follow the mother into the water : they did not dive into the water 

 like the mother, but went into it like a dog, with their head above 

 water ; and it was not until the middle of October that they were 



