MISCELLANEOUS. 
Notice of two New Species of Colobus from Western Africa. 
By Dr. J. E. Gray. 
Tue British Museum some time ago received two skins from West. 
Africa with some skins of Colobi: one is in a perfect state, with the 
skull, &c., and is doubtless a Colobus; the other, being a flat skin, 
without head, hands, or feet, can only be referred to that genus with 
great doubt; but if a Colobus or any other genus of Monkey, it is 
the skin of an animal that has not before occurred to me. 
1. Colobus cristatus. 
Crown of head with short reflexed hair, with two whorls on the 
forehead, and a narrow, linear, compressed, longitudinal crest behind; 
fur yellow-brown ; front part of body, shoulders, and outside of fore 
legs greyer; throat, chest, belly, and inside of the limbs and the feet 
greyish white. 
Hab. West Africa. Brit. Mus. 
2. Colobus?? chrysurus. 
Fur soft, blackish, brown-washed on the middle of the back; 
stripe down outside of the fore legs and along the middle of the 
upper side of the base of the tail, narrow at the base, but dilated at 
the end so as to cover the end of the tail, yellow-brown; hair on 
the sides of the body elongate; the sides of the throat and belly 
nakedish ; hair of the back forming a whorl between the shoulders. 
Hab. West Africa. Skin received with furriers’ skins of Colobi 
from West Africa. 
On Purifying the Water for the purpose of Fish-hatching. 
By W. H. Ransom, M.D. 
It must have been noticed by every one who has attempted to 
hatch fish-spawn, that the great risk to the young fry is at the last 
moment, when the egg-covering should burst and the young fish 
escape. This spring, while hatching some spawn of Perch in asmall 
dish, the water of which was changed daily, I lost a great number 
just as the young fish began to escape. The cause of the great 
number of deaths at that particular moment seemed to be the decom- 
position of those of the eggs which had not been fertilized; these 
making the surrounding water impure just when the embryos required 
most vigorously to respire. As I could not pour off the water to 
change it, for fear of losing the young ones, I added, night and 
morning, a few drops of a weak solution of permanganate of lime; 
this had at once the effect of sweetening the water and of supplying 
oxygen. I lost no more, and for many days I continued to add daily 
doses to the water in the dish without changing it. The young fry 
remained healthy, and seemed, although they could not have any 
food, as vigorous as were those from another batch of the same age 
