210 TEE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



lung-fish were purchased of Mr. D. O'Connor, who had been 

 engaged by the Royal Society of Queensland to remove a 

 number of these fish to new localities, because the extinction 

 of the species was feared. This was done so successfully that 

 he was encouraged to attempt the importation of these fishes 

 into England, which was equally successful, and they are still 

 living in the reptile house. 



A young giraffe of the typical form was purchased of Mr. 

 Hagenbeck in July. The animal only lived about a month 

 after its arrival ; post-mortem examination showed that it had 

 suffered from hydatid tumours. 



Grevy's zebra came to the Gardens in 1899. A pair had 

 been presented to Queen Victoria by the Emperor Menelek, 

 and Her Majesty deposited them in the care of the Society. 

 This zebra derives its specific name, conferred by Milne - 

 Edwards, from a former President of the French Republic, 

 to whom a mare was presented in 1882 by the ruler of 

 Abyssinia. The animal was sent to the Jardin des Plantes, 

 where it lived but a few days, and the mounted skin of this, 

 the type-specimen, is now in the Natural History Museum at 

 Paris. At a Scientific Meeting on April 3, 1883, Colonel Grant 

 read some notes on the zebra met with by the Speke and 

 Grant expedition, from which it appeared that this species,, 

 or a geographical race, ranged a good distance to the south 

 of Shoa, whence the type-specimen was procured. 



At the Scientific Meeting of May 7, 1901, Dr. Sclater, on 

 behalf of Mr. E. Bid well, a well-known ornithologist, called 

 attention to the fact that in the translation of the work of 

 Ludolphus on Ethiopia there was the description of an animal 

 "about the bigness of a mule, brought out of the woods of 

 Habessinia and the country possessed by the Galans [Gallas] and 

 easily tam'd." ^ The whole seemed to correspond very closely 

 with the accounts of Gravy's zebra. Later examination of the 



* Ludolphus: A new history of Ethiopia . . . Made English hy J.P., Gent. 

 Folio. London, 1682. The passage, accurately cited in the Proceedings^ 1901, ii. 2, 

 is unfortunately marred by a mistranslation hy J. P. The words : " A present 

 of great esteem, and frequently given to the Kings of Habessinia," quoted 

 to show that these zebras were Royal gifts in the seventeenth century, mis- 

 represent Ludolphus, who wrote : " In donis Regum Habessiniae frequens et 

 prsecipuum esse solet.'' 



