Dr. Bancroft on some Animals of Jamaica. 81 
haps new, as J find no description in the books we have here that agrees 
with its characters. I had drawn up an account of these to be read at 
one of our meetings here; but as I send you the original (in but sorry 
preservation, yet as I received it) I do not presume to transmit my paper 
to your Society, knowing how much better the subject will be treated and 
illustrated by your home naturalists. 
2. It is accompanied in the box, by a specimen of Scyllarus occiden- 
talis, Fab., which here and elsewhere is accounted rare, and may not be 
in your Society’s collection. Iam very sorry that this too is in an imper- 
fect state. I originally rubbed it thoroughly with arsenical soap ; and 
afterwards, in endeavouring to wash this off, and to diminish a part of 
its dirty or muddy look (which however is its natural appearance) I 
broke off one of its legs, and one of its antenne. These I secured at 
the time, and they are sent along with it in the box. But I find that an 
ignorant careless servant has since broken off another leg (which is also 
sent), and done some other slight damage. I can therefore only say that 
I will endeavour to send you a more perfect specimen, both of this and of 
the Procellaria. In regard to the latter, I may state that, although not rare, 
it is with difficulty found, since it burrows only in crevices on the tops of 
our highest mountains, scarcely accessible. The individual now sent 
was hunted by a terrier dog from a hole on the summit of the Blue Moun- 
tain Peak, on the 17th of March last, and, as I am told, uttered the 
most piteous cries, like those of a child, while being dragged forth. 
These birds are found in some number on that spot, and individuals have 
sometimes gone thither to hunt them, They probably resort thither 
chiefly in their breeding season, and are very seldom seen flying except 
in the evening, when it is supposed that they proceed to sea. As they 
frequent this island, and have not been observed elsewhere, the species, 
if new, might be called Proc. Jamaicensis. 
3. A species of Lamarck’s genus Loligo, which is doubtless the Sepra 
mentioned with unpardonable looseness by Dr. Brown, in his Natura 
History of Jamaica, p. 386, so as to forbid all subsequent notice of it by 
naturalists. He says that it is “* furnished with a great number of ten- 
* tacula of different sizes and forms,’* and this he deemed sufficient ! It 
differs in its form and in certain characters from all the species described 
in Lamarck’s Animaux sans vertébres, and other recent works, and seems 
Vor. V. F 
