Miscellaneous. 527 



Palasarctic Lepidoptera which IMr. South has catalogued in the 

 vohime before us. A short preface gives an account of Air. Leech's 

 life, travels, and collections ; and from it vre learn that he succes- 

 sively visited Para, ilarocco, the Canaries, Madeira, China, Corea, 

 Japan, and the Xorth-western Himalayas, everywhere collecting 

 and observing. 



The collection, as presented by Mrs. E. Leech to the British Museum 

 and catalogued by Mr. South, consists of 18,000 specimens, repre- 

 senting 1100 species. The most valuable portion consists of the 

 materials used in the preparation of Mr. Leech's great work on the 

 butterflies of China, Japan, and the Corea, and of the fine series 

 of varieties and aberrations, chiefly European, a selection of the 

 latter being represented on the two coloured plates of the volume. 



Those who knew Mr. Leech personally will be pleased with the 

 excellent portrait which forms the frontispiece ; and it is a matter 

 for real thankfulness to entomologists that Mr. Leech was not only 

 enabled to do such excellent scientific work during his lifetime, but 

 that his valuable collection should have found a permanent resting- 

 place in the Xatural History Museum at South Kensington after his 

 death. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



0,1 the Evolution of the Proboscidea. By C. W. Andrews, D.Sc. 



Until the author's recent discoveries of primitive Proboscidea in the 

 Middle and Upper Eocene formations of the Fayum, Egypt, the 

 oldest known members of this mammalian order were Dinotherium 

 Ciivieri and Tetrabtlodon angustkUns, from the base of the Miocene 

 in France. The new Egyptian fossils not only reveal for the first 

 time the early history of the order, but also provide more satisfactory 

 material for the discussion of its evolution than has hitherto been 

 available. 



The most important changes in the Proboscidea occur in the skull, 

 mandible, and dentition. 



Owing to the increase in the size of the tusks and to the presence 

 of the proboscis, the facial region of the skull becomes shortened, 

 and at the same time the premaxillae become wider. The presence 

 of the proboscis also accounts for the position of the external nares. 

 The demand for a greater surface of attachment for the muscles 

 supporting a skull rendered heavy by the tusks and trunk is met 

 by the great development of the diploe in certain of the cranial 

 bones, resulting in the enormous expansion of the forwardly sloping 

 occipital surface. The maxillae become greatly enlarged concomit- 

 antly with the increase in the size and degree of hypselodonty of 

 the molars. At the same time the zygomatic arch becomes weaker 

 and the jugal takes a smaller share in its composition. 



