498 Zoological Society : — 



Male. Female. 



Feet : First pair — Width of hand 2 



Third pair 6-| 5 



Abdomen : Total length 3 3| 



Width of third segment .... 1 T 5 ^- 

 Width of sixth segment. ... li 



This species will take its place in the neighbourhood of Cancer ple- 

 beius, Poeppig, a Chilian species, from which, however, it is distin- 

 guished by the stoutness of the first pair of feet, the less prominence 

 of the tubercular spines on the hand, the greater prominence of the 

 middle tooth of the lobes at the margin of the carapace, the greater 

 abundance of hair, the absence of the scroll of white spots which paint 

 each side of the upper surface of the carapace in Cancer plebeius, and 

 the much greater unevenness of the carapace, arising from the deeper 

 cutting of the divisions between the regions. 



Only two specimens of this Crab have fallen in my way. One is 

 in the British Museum, and the other is in my own collection at 

 Madeira. To both were attached numbers of the rare cirripede 

 Pcecilasma crassum, Darwin. I have named it in honour of that 

 learned carcinologist the President of the Linnaean Society, and the 

 author of a memoir on the genus Cancer, printed amongst the Trans- 

 actions of that body. 



On the Island-hen of Tristan d'Acunha. By Philip 

 Ltjtley Sclater, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S., Secretary to the 

 Society. 



The fact of the existence of a bird of the family Rallidae, with im- 

 perfectly developed wings, in the Island of Tristan d'Acunha has 

 already been recorded by more than one writer*. One of the objects 

 most interesting to naturalists in the fine collection of living animals 

 lately received by the Society from His Excellency Sir George Grey, 

 to which I especially called the attention of the Society at their last 

 meeting f, was a single example of this bird — the first of its kind 

 that has reached Europe alive or dead. It appears to belong to a new 

 species of the genus Gallinula, closely allied in general aspect to our 

 Common Water-hen (G. chloropus), though readily distinguishable 

 on accurate comparison. 



Five living examples of this bird were brought from the Island of 

 Tristan d'Acunha to Cape Town by a person formerly in the service of 

 Sir George Grey. Two of them were accidentally killed at Cape Town, 

 but their skins, except the heads, were preserved by Mr. Benstead, 

 and are now before the Meeting. Of the three that were shipped 

 for England for the Society, two died on board, but their bodies were 

 placed in spirits and brought to England. Fortunately the remain- 

 ing individual reached our Gardens in safety, and xn&y now be seen 

 in excellent health and condition in the large Aviary. 



* See Mr. J. H. Gurney in Zoologist, p. 401 7 (1853), and Capt. Carmichael in 

 Linnean Trans, xii. p. 496. 



t See P.Z.S. 1801, pp. 208, 209. 



