424 Zoological Society. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



June 22, 1847.— Harpur Gamble, Esq., M.D., in the Chair. 



Note on the Spermatozoa of the Indian Elephant. 

 By George Gulliver, F.R.S. 



In the testicle of the elephant that died on the 7th of this month 

 in the menagerie of the Society, there was scarcely any semen. The 

 seminal tubes measured from the y^-gth to the ^-th of an English 

 inch in diameter ; they contained a brownish pulpy matter, which, 

 under the microscope, appeared to be composed of a liquid loaded 

 with a multitude of minute, shining, oil-like molecules, either free or 

 aggregated into roundish and shapeless corpuscles. There were also 

 a few objects like altered epithelial corpuscles ; but not a single sper- 

 matozoon, either free or in a cell, could be discovered. 



Within the tube of the epididymis, however, a few distinct sper- 

 matozoa were found ; and the drawing of them now shown is on a 

 scale of xoVoth °f an m(m » tne OD J ects being magnified between 700 

 and 800 times, linear admeasurement. 



It will be seen that there is nothing peculiar either in the form or 

 size of these spermatozoa of the elephant. They resemble generally 

 those of numerous other mammalia. For the sake of comparison I 

 exhibit drawings, made on the same scale, of spermatozoa from the 

 Cervidee, Camelida, Ursidce, Mustelidce, Soricidce and Sciurida, all of 

 which are noticed more or less in my papers in the Proceedings of 

 the Society, July 26, 1842, April 11, 1843, and February 24, 1846. 



The elephant was supposed to be about forty years old. 



I may mention, that while engaged in looking for the testicles of 

 the elephant, we exposed two large muscles arising from the pubes, 

 and inserted into the dorsum of the corpora cavernosa penis. Each 

 of these muscles was quite as large as the biceps muscle of the human 

 arm. 



The use of these muscles in the elephant, to elevate, retract and 

 suspend his immense penis, is indicated by their attachments. Under 

 the microscope the fibre of these muscles of the penis was found to 

 possess all the characters of common voluntary muscle. 



Brief notes on the habits of Noctilio mastivus. 

 By P. H. Gosse, Esq. 



The following notes are extracted from a journal kept in Jamaica 

 during a residence there in the years 1845 and 1846 : — 



" Being out on a shooting excursion on the 18th of October, 1845, 

 round Crabpond Point, on the southern coast, about the middle of 

 the day I looked about for a seat on which to rest while I ate some 

 refreshment. A gigantic cotton-tree (Eriodendron anfractuosum) in 

 the grass-piece of Mount Edgecumbe seemed to promise in its long 

 root-spurs the seat I was seeking. On arriving at it I found the 

 tree was hollow, the trunk forming a wide chimney of unknown 



