420 



the bright olive-yellow throat and very pale tawny-brown flanks, the spring 

 and summer livery. Among the specimens exhibited by Mr. North and 

 bearing out his statements was one captured in his garden at Ashfield on 

 the 26th inst., which shows a transition from the winter to the spring plu- 

 mage, the grey throat being faintly washed with olive-yellow, and the flanks 

 nearly as pale as specimens obtained in the summer. Z. toestermnsis^ Quoy 

 and Gaim. and other writers, must therefore become a synonym of the older 

 name Z. caerulescens, of Latham. 



August 2Sth, 1895. — 1) On the Homology of the Palatine Process 

 of the Mammalian Premaxillary. By R. Broom, MB., B.Sc. From its 

 mode of development the author considers the palatine process of the ma- 

 xillary to be a vomerine element developed as a splint to the cartilage of 

 Jacobson. In marsupials, and probably some higher mammals this splint is 

 ossified by a bony extension from the premaxillary ; but in many other 

 mammals it maintains for some time its independent existence, only anchy- 

 losing later with the premaxillary. In a few forms, such as OrnithorhyiicJiUS, 

 and the common Australian insectivorous Bat [Miniopteriis] , it exists as a 

 distinct bone throughout life. This bone is held to be the homologue of the 

 lacertilian so-called vomer , and the name pre-vomer is proposed for it. — 

 2) Botanical. — 3) The Silurian Trilobites of New South Wales, with re- 

 ference to those of other parts of Australia. Part III. Phacopiclae. By R. 

 Etheridge, junr. , and John Mitchell. This important family is repre- 

 sented in the Silurian rocks of Australia by five species of Phacops, and one 

 of Hausmannia ; of these four are described as new. The Tasmanian forms 

 are at present undescribed. — Mr. North exhibited a set of four eggs of 

 Turnix leucogaster, recentlj' described by him. The eggs were taken at lUa- 

 murta , Central Australia, on the 18th of June, 1895; and are of a buffy- 

 white ground-colour, minutely freckled and sparingly spotted with different 

 shades of chestnut-brown, purplish-brown, and violet-grey; an average 

 specimen measuring 0-9 X 0-73 inch. — Mr. Steel showed a very large 

 specimen of a ship-worm [Teredo) from redgum (?) piles in the fresh water 

 of the Rewa River, Fiji, collected by Mr. T. Ferguson. — Mr. Froggatt 

 showed a representative collection of some eighty named specimens of 

 Australian Ants [Formicidae) . Also specimens of a beetle [Arthi-opterus bre- 

 visf Westw.) belonging to the family Paussidae , captured in the nests of a 

 common Australian Ant [Ecatomma metullicum). African species of this fa- 

 mily commonly occur in such situations , but the exhibitor was unaware of 

 any record of this habit in Australian species. — Mr. Henn exhibited, on 

 behalf of Mrs. G. J. Waterhouse, a very fine collection of seventeen species 

 of Cypraeidae^ found by herself and sons alive at low water in Port Jackson 

 between the months of May and August of this year. Nine of the species 

 have not been previously recorded from Port Jackson. — Mr. Edgar R. 

 Waits exhibited a number of photographs of Tree Kangaroos [Dendrulagus 

 benmttianiis, De Vis), at present living in the Melbourne Zoological Gardens, 

 sent by Mr. D. le Souëf. Some of the kangaroos are sitting on the topmost 

 branches of the trees, which have been defoliated even to the extreme tips 

 of the branches. Other photographs show the animals on the ground in 

 truly macropine positions ; but one in which the kangaroo is on »all fours« 

 indicates that the fore limbs are probably being more freely used in terre- 

 strial progression than usual. 



Druck von Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig. 



