PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 313 



Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Musignano, Mons. Temminck, and 

 John James Audubon, were elected foreign members of the So- 

 ciety. Mr. Blyth having been called upon by the chairman, de- 

 livered a conversational lecture on the uses of certain peculiarities 

 of structure, and premised his observations with the statement, that, 

 having recently been engaged in a work on general Ornithology 

 (now in a forward state), wherein he had disclosed some entirely 

 new views on the mutual affinities of birds, founded upon the ag- 

 gregates of their agreements and differences, in anatomical, as well 

 as in external characters, he had necessarily examined very ini- 

 nutely the structure of the various types, in doing which he had 

 observed several curious coincidences not hitherto remarked, which, 

 in some instances, he thought had led to the solution of interesting 

 problems in Ornithology. He would commence, however, by call- 

 ing the attention of naturalists to an interesting particular which 

 he had now for the first time noticed in the magnificent specimen 

 of the Snowy Owl before him : he alluded to the presence of 

 aigrettes, which were indeed so obvious that he was astonished that 

 they had never previously been remarked. He was gratified, how- 

 ever, rather than surprised at detecting their presence, for it beau- 

 tifully corroborated and confirmed the views which he had before 

 entertained, and often expressed, regarding the systematical position 

 of its genus. JMr. B. then proceeded to comment on a singularity 

 of habit, rather than a peculiarity of structure, observed in the 

 Motmot genus (Prionites), with which all naturalists at all con- 

 versant with exotic Ornithology are familiar : he alluded to the 

 unaccountable habit of self-mutilation practised by those birds, or 

 the nibbling off of a small portion of the vanes of their two long 

 middle tail-feathers, immediately beyond the extremities of the 

 next pair, leaving, however, the tips barbed and untouched, as also 

 the entire remainder of their plumage. Specimens were exhibited 

 of the bird in moult, wherein the new feathers were entire, and 

 others displaying more or less of the truncation of the web. Mr. 

 B. offered an hypothesis in explanation, but pointed out a similarity 

 of habit noticeable in an Indian group of Magpies — the Dendrocilta 

 of Mr. Gould — to the discovery of which he was, curiously enough, 

 led by remarking tlie resemblance, in general aspect and propor- 

 tions, of the Motmots to the Cocindeus genus in question. This in- 

 duced him to examine a specimen of the common Dendrocilta vaga- 

 hujida, when he found, to his surprise, that, although the unserrated 

 mandibles of the Pie were inadequate to cut through the web as 

 was done by the JMotmots, yet that the same feathers were so ex- 

 tremely worn by constant nibbling that they might be read through 

 with the utmost fatilily, which was quite impossible in the otirer 

 parts of the feather. A specimen was handed round. Mr. Blyth 

 tljought that co-okscrvation of the two genera might possibly lead 

 eventually to the discovery of the object of .so very anomalous a 

 practice. The protuberance on the beaks of the Hornbill constitut- 

 ed the next .subject of con.sidcration. After briefly describing its 



