195 
layer is more developed in the Potamocherus than in other animals 
of the class I have been able to examine ; from this we may infer 
that this animal is of a more vegetable-eating nature than our omni- 
vorous Hog. 
2. Nore on THE Fox or Japan. By Artuur Apams, F.L.S. 
The Fox of Japan is quite a distinct species from that of China, 
specimens of which I procured on the banks of the Wusung River, 
near its junction with the Yang-tze-kiang. The Japanese species, 
four skins of which were obtained by Mr. Bedwell from Niegata in 
Nippon, has black ears lined with white, and a black spot on the 
upper surface near the base of the tail. The colour of the fur on the 
neck and back is ferruginous, and is much softer and longer than 
that of the Foxes of Europe and China, and the brush is also longer 
and thicker. 
3. Memoranpa ON THE Hippopotamus AND BALANICEPS 
RECENTLY IMPORTED TO ENGLAND, AND NOW IN THE 
GARDENS or THE ZooLocicaL Society. By Joun PeE- 
THERICK, F.R.G.S., H. M. Consux ror Tue Soupan. 
Since 1853 I have devoted from six to seven months of each year 
to the exploration of some of the unknown regions of Central Africa. 
My starting-point, Khartoum, at the junction of the Blue and 
White Niles, in lat. 152° N., a town of about 60,000 inhabitants, is 
the capital of seven provinces dependent on Egypt, called the Sou- 
dan, consisting of the whole of that, for the most part sandy, di- 
strict between the second Nile cataract at Wadi Halfa and the terri- 
tories inhabited by the naked negro in 13° N. lat. ; whilst its breadth 
extends from the borders of Darfour on the west to the shores of 
the Red Sea and Abyssinia on the east. 
Leaving Khartoum, and navigating the White Nile to between . 
9° and 10° of N. lat., a narrow channel, and for the most part over- 
grown with reeds, which by former Nile navigators had been con- 
sidered unnavigable, attracted my attention, and pursuing it, not 
without difficulty finding my way through some narrow openings in 
a forest of reeds, I found this to be the connexion between a large 
lake and the Nile, of which it is one of the most important feeders 
hitherto known. 
This lake, according to the time it occupied me to sail in a well- 
appointed boat with three large latteen sails, from one extremity of it 
to the other, after making allowance for the windings of the open 
passages through the dense vegetation with which it is for the most 
part covered, I consider to be about 180 miles long, and perhaps 
some 60 miles wide. 
Its waters, ornamented with several promontories and islands, 
