Natural-Historical CoUectioni, 63 



tie IMuseum. Since Mr. Wingate's dissections, several specimens have been shot 

 in different parts of England, and Mr. YarrelL has described it before the Lin- 

 luean Society, (19th January last,) and determined its characters as follows : 



C. Bewickii, rostro semicylindrico atro, basi aurantiacA, corpore albo, caud4 

 rectricibus 18, pedibus nigris. 



The new species is one-third smaller than the Hooper (C. ferus), with which it 

 has been hitherto confounded. They differ more in anatomical structure than in 

 external character, and principally in the trachea. 



The characters of the hooper, as defined by Mr. Yarrell, are, " C. ferus, rostro 

 semicylindrico atro, basi lateribusque (his ultra nares) fiavis, corpore albo, cauda 

 rectricibus 20, pedibus nigris." 



A paper, by P.J. Selby, Esq. descriptive of this new species, was read before tlie 

 Newcastle Nat. Hist. Soc. on the 16th Feb. last, and will form part of the 1st 

 vol. of their forthcoming transactions. It is remarkable that a specimen has, for 

 some years, lain unrecognized in Mr. Selby's museum. 



On the Mucous Ducts of the Gasteropodous MoUusca ; by Dr. W. Kleeberg 

 of Keenigsberg — In the gasteropodous mollusca of the genera Limax, Arion, 

 Helix, £m/jtom«, we find under the mouth , between the two inferior lips, and 

 the protuberance of the disk of the foot, the orifice of a canal, hitherto un- 

 observed, which runs along the whole of the foot. This anatomical arrange- 

 ment is not very distinct in the genus Succinea, which approaches nearer to 

 the LymnseaB in internal structure. In the Arion empiricorum, which is en- 

 tirely black, we perceive a trace of this canal, which appears in the form of a 

 whitish band. The canal is hot simple ; it receives many little ducts, which 

 come from the muscular sac in which the viscera are contained. In the Bulimus 

 ovatus, Brug. a little gland, which has not yet been described, opens into this 

 canal; it is of the size of a bean, trilobate, granulated, and situated under the 

 cesophagus and the inferior ganglion of the cerebral ring, so that it is surrounded 

 by nervous filaments passing from this ganglion. The distribution of all these 

 ducts may be easily observed when filled with mercury : Mr. Kleeberg names 

 them mucous ducts, but he has not been able to determine their use and im- 

 portance — Bull, des Sci. Nat. 



History of the Fossil Elk of Ireland, by S. Hibbert, M.D. F.R.S.E. ^c. 



In the third volume of the Edinburgh Journal of Science, Dr. Hibbert advan- 

 ced the opinion that the Fossil Elk of Ireland {Cervus Euryceros, Aldrov.*) 

 was of a race which had but very recently become extinct ; and in the fourth 

 number of the new series of the same Journal, published this month, we have 

 some additional contributions towards the history of this animal, as an appendix 

 to -his former paper. 



The facts contained in this communication may be epitomized under the follow- 

 ing general heads : 



" 1. The Cervus Euryceros was the contemporary of such extinct animals of 

 Europe as the Elephant, the Rhinoceros, the Hyena, the Hippopotamus, and 

 divers others. 



" 2. The Cervus Euryceros was the contemporary of the earliest inhabitants of 

 the human race dwelling in Europe. 



" 3. The Cervus Euryceros, or Fossil Elk of Ireland, so far from being an ani- 

 mal, the existence of which is referable to a remote antiquity, actually lived in the 

 wilds of Prussia so late as the year 1550, and perhaps later. 



" Dr. Hibbert continues to use the name Cervus Euryceros, applied to the fossil 

 elk by Aldrovandus, in preference to C. giganteus of Blumenbach, or C mega- 

 ceros of Mr. Hart of Dublin, because of the priority of the former appellation. 



