ON ANTILOCAPRA AMERICANA. 127 



21. ON THE CAUSE OF DEATH OF A LEOPARD.* P. z.^1880, 



MR. W. A. FORBES exhibited a small fragment of bone which had caused 

 the death of a Leopard (Felis pardus) in the Society's Menagerie on 

 April 20, under the following circumstances : 



For about a week previous to its death the animal, a fine adult male, 

 had refused food, and, having been separated from its companions, was 

 noticed by the keeper to be apparently suffering from some intestinal 

 obstruction. The animal was in good condition and very fat. On 

 opening the abdominal cavity after death, about a gallon of an opaque, 

 dirty-red-coloured, chyly-looking fluid was found in it. There was a 

 large clot of indurated faeces in the large intestine. In addition, near 

 the commencement of the jejunum, was found a small bolus of straw 

 that had been swallowed, as is often done by these animals in the absence 

 of grass. In this a triangular splinter of bone, about 1J inch long by 1 

 inch high, with a very sharp edge, had become impacted firmly, so much 

 so as to perforate the walls of the intestine, and to project outside into 

 the abdominal cavity for about J of an inch. The movements of the 

 animal, or the peristaltic action of the intestines, had caused this sharply 

 projecting angle of the bone to cut through the intestinal walls for the 

 distance of some 2 inches. Through this wound the juices of the stomach 

 and intestinal canal, together with the fluid swallowed by the animal, had 

 apparently leaked, and had given rise to the accumulation of fluid in the 

 abdominal cavity which had caused death. 



22. ON ANTILOCAPRA AMERICANA, f RZ.S.1880, 



p. 540. 



MR. "W. A. FORBES exhibited some drawings of the horns of the Prong- 

 buck (Antilocapra americana), and made the following remarks : 



" Many of those here present to-night will doubtless remember the 

 surprise created amongst naturalists by Mr. Bartlett's announcement, 

 in 1865, of the shedding of the horns of the Prongbuck. The first 

 surprise that this statement created having passed away, the deciduous 

 nature of the horns of Antilocapra americana seemed in a fair way of 

 being accepted as one of the commonplaces of zoology. About two 

 years ago, however, the celebrated American zoologist Prof. E. D. Cope 

 appended the following editorial note to a short account of this animal 



* Proc. Zool. Soc. 1880, p. 358. Read May 4, 1880. 

 t Ibid. 1880, pp. 540-543. Read Nov. 16, 1880. 



