470 Zoological Society : — 



They both differ considerably from the egg of the Galeated Cas- 

 sowary ; and INIrs. Turner assures me that Uiey were both brought 

 from New Britain, by her husband and the captain of the ship, 

 with the Uving bird, to Sydney ; they were divided by lot, and her 

 husband having the choice, selected the tubercnlated egg : so that, 

 if they are not the eggs of the Mooruk, it would indicate that there 

 must be two Cassowaries inhabiting New Britain, both different 

 from C. galeatus. 



There is so great a similarity in the colovir and texture of the 

 smooth egg witli the ground-colour of the other egg between the 

 tubercles, that it has been suggested that the tubercnlated egg is the 

 perfect egg of the bird, and the smooth egg that of a very immature 

 or sickly specimen. 



June 8, 1858.— Dr. Gray, F.R.S., V.P., in the Chair. 



On New^ Species of Birds from Western Africa, in the 

 Collection of the British Museum. By Dr. Gustav 

 Hartlaub of Bremen, Foreign Member. 



One of the principal reasons that made me anxious to visit Eng- 

 land was the wish to increase my materials for a second edition of 

 my book on the Birds of Western Africa. In this object I have been 

 most liberally assisted by Mr.G. R. Gray, who has allowed me every 

 opportunity of examining the specimens in the magnificent Collec- 

 tion of the British Museum. Besides some interesting novelties 

 which we found, and which I wish to describe in the ' Proceedings ' 

 of the Society, amona: whose Foreign IMembers I have the honour 

 to be enrolled, I have had the pleasure of inspecting some very rare 

 species which I had not seen before. Among these I may mention 

 some of those rare types collected during the second Niger Expe- 

 dition by Mr. Louis Fraser, — as, for instance, the Syhicola super- 

 ciliosa of that naturalist, which, from a second and more perfect 

 Ashantee specimen, I have found to be what I never expected, a 

 typical Cariiaroptera ; then the Coccothraustes olioacens of Fraser, 

 a type most peculiar and unique amongst the great number of iVfrican 

 Fringillidse. But by far the most interesting and most curious 

 African form, which I have seen for the first time, is a little bird 

 hardly larger than the smallest Humming-bird, the Dicceum Rushice 

 of Cassin, and the type of my genus Pholidornis. This minute and 

 very peculiarly coloured species is the only true African representa- 

 tive of the essentially Asiatic form Dicceian, from which, however, I 

 hold it to be truly generically distinct. 



The new species which I have observed are the following: — 



1. Onychognathus Hartlaubii, G. R. Gray, MS. 



Minor ; obscure violascenti-chalybeus ; capite toto et remigum mi- 

 norum murginibus externis in ceneurn vergentibus ; scapidaribus, 

 tectricibus alarum minoribus et siibalaribus dorso concoloribus ; 

 rerlricibus obscure chalybeis, margine cenescentibus ; remigum 



