274 Chronicles of Science. [ April, 
of Deer;” Dr. J. E. Gray, “On the Cats (Helidx) in the British 
Museum,” and “On the Pigs (Swidx) in the British Museum ;” 
Captain Dow, on a young living specimen of the new Tapir, from 
Central America (Lapirus Bairdi), which he has obtained for the 
Society's menagerie, and is shortly about to forward to Europe. 
Dr. Sclater drew the attention of the Society to the fact that the 
Eland was becoming recognized as a meat- giving animal, specimens 
having been exhibited by Lord Hill at the late Smithfield Club 
Cattle Show, which he believed were the first that had appeared in 
the European markets. Mr. Gerard Kvrefft, who is curator of the 
Australian Museum at Sydney, has discovered, amongst the very 
fine collections of fossil bones in that imstitution, a specimen of the 
humerus of a gigantic fossil Hchidna; of this he sent a notice to 
the Society, not giving the new fossil species a name, since he was 
not sure if the species were known in Europe or not. 
With regard to Birds, besides very many papers describing new 
species from various exotic localities, we have to record a note by 
Dr. Peters, of Berlin, “On the Homology of the Quadrate Bone 
in the Class Aves,” in which he controverts the view recently main- 
tained by Professor Huxley as to its supposed correspondence with 
the dncus in the mammalia. Dr, Hector announced to the Society 
the discovery of an egg of the Great Moa (Dinornis gigantea), 
containing au embryo, found in the province of Otago, New Zealand, 
at a depth of about two feet below the surface. Professor Owen 
has also communicated two memoirs on the same great birds, being 
the eleventh and twelfth of his series of papers on this subject. 
These papers contained descriptions of the integument of the sole 
of the foot and of the tendons of a toe of Dinornis robustus, and 
a description of some bones of D. maaximus. Professor Alfred 
Newton, of Cambridge, exhibited to the Society the humerus of a 
large species of extinct Pelican, which he has discovered in the 
Cambridgeshire fens. Several other new birds, reptiles, amphibia, 
and fishes have been described to the Society. The work done in 
Invertebrata has also been of considerable importance. Dr. Baird, 
of the British Museum, has laid before the Society a monograph of 
the group Gephyrea, those very strange worms which in external 
appearance seem to connect the Annelids with the Echinoderms, 
but are really true worms. Dr. Bowerbank read a paper “On the 
European Glass-rope”—the Hyalonema Lusitanicum of Bocage— 
which he maintained from examination of its minute structure was 
not even specifically distinct from the Japanese species, although 
Dr. Gray had placed the Lusitanian form in a new genus. Dr. Gray, 
at the following meeting, maintained that he was right, in spite 
of what Dr. Bowerbank alleged. According to Professor Max 
Schultze, however, both these gentlemen hold erroneous views as to 
the coral or sponge nature of Hyalonema. 
