332 Linnean Society. [June 6, 



or of any orifice or cleft ; thus agreeing with Mr. Newport's state- 

 ment (Phil. Trans. 1851, p. 203), that " on careful examination of 

 the envelopes of the frog, he had not been able to detect any fissure 

 or orifice." In conclusion Mr. Hogg refers to the most recent 

 discovery of that lamented physiologist, which seems to set this 

 question at rest, by showing that while spermatozoa are found 

 " within the vitelline cavity in direct communication with, and 

 penetrating into the yelk," they " do not reach the yelk of the Frog's 

 egg by any special orifice, or canal, in the envelopes, but actually 

 pierce the substance of the envelopes at any part with which they 

 may happen to come in contact, as I have constantly observed while 

 watching their entrance" (Phil. Trans. 1853, p. 271). 



Read further a memoir "On the Osteological Relations obser- 

 vable among a few Species of the Bovine Family." By Walter 

 Adam, M.D. Communicated by R. Brown, Esq., V.P.L.S. 



Dr. Adam commences his Paper by referring to a communication 

 made by him to the Society in 1831, and published in the sixteenth 

 volume of its ' Transactions,' " On the Osteological Symmetry of the 

 Camel," in which an attempt was made to trace, throughout one 

 large animal, the identities and variations of osteological dimensions 

 characteristic of a species. In the present memoir he proposes, by 

 an osteological comparison of some species in a cognate group of 

 animals, to exemplify the more striking resemblances and deviations 

 in form which are exhibited among the components of a zoological 

 family. The skeletons examined were nine in number, all contained 

 in the collection of the British Museum, and consisting of both 

 males and females of three species, the Bos Bantiger of Java, the 

 Bibos Gaurus of Nepaul, and the Bison Americanus ; and of males 

 only of three other species, the Aurochs (Bison) of Lithuania, the 

 CafFre Buffalo of the Cape of Good Hope, and the short- horned 

 Buffalo of the river Gambia. As in his previous paper. Dr. Adam 

 takes as the standard of measurement the basilar length of the cra- 

 nium, which, divided into 72 parts, forms the n;eans of comparison 

 with all the other dimensions. In conformity with this standard, he 

 gives the proportional measurements of all the principal parts of the 

 nine skeletons examined, with elaborate minuteness, in a tabular 

 form, and adds also a series of tables, in which the dimensions are 

 represented by proportional straight lines instead of figures. 



