62 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Prosector of the Zoological Society.— We learu that Mr. Frank E. 

 Beddard, M.A., of Oxford, Naturalist to the ' Challenger' Commission, has 

 been selected out of thirteen candidates for the post of Prosector to the 

 Zoological Society of Loudon, in succession to the late Mr. W. A. Forbes. 

 Mr. Beddard was a pupil of the late Prof. Rolleston, and for the past year 

 has been employed on editorial and other work connected with the issue of 

 the official reports on the scientific results of the 'Challenger' Expedition. 

 He has also been entrusted with the examination and description of the 

 Isopoda collected by the Expedition. 



MAMMALIA. 



The Burmese Elephant at the Zoological Gardens. — By the time 

 these pages are in the hands of our readers most of them doubtless who 

 are withiji reach of the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park, will have 

 gratified their curiosity by inspecting the singular-looidng Elephant which 

 is at present on view there, and which has been imported at considerable 

 trouble and expense by Mr. P. T. Barnum, from a village called Doang 

 Daniee, in the State of Karennee, a mountainous country lying to the 

 north-east of Pegu. For those who, residing at a distance, may not have 

 an opportunity of seeing the animal, the following description of it, com- 

 municated to 'The Times' by Professor Flower, F.R.S., President of the 

 Zoological Society, will doubtless prove of interest : — 



" The Burmese Elephant, belonging to Messi*s. Barnum, Bailey, and 

 Hutchinson, now deposited in the Zoological Society's Gardens, Regent's 

 Park, is apparently not quite full grown, being between 7 ft. and 8 ft. in 

 height, and has a well-formed pair of tusks about 18 in. in length. It has 

 a remarkably long tail, the stiff bristly hairs at the end of which almost 

 toucii the ground. The ears are somewhat larger than the ordinary Indian 

 Elephant, and are curiously jagged or festooned at the edges ; whether as a 

 natural formation or tl)e result of early injuries it is difficult to say. It is 

 chiefly remarkable, however, for a peculiarity of coloration which is quite 

 unlike that of any Elephant hitherto brought to this country. As is well 

 known, tiie special colour of the skin ol all animals depends upon the 

 presence in the deepar layer of the epidermis, or outer skin, of certain 

 minute dark particles or ' pigment corpuscles,' which obscure or modify the 

 pale pinkish colour of tiie true skin beneath. In tliis Elephant the 

 general surface of the integument is quite as dark, if not darker than that 

 usually seen in its kind, being, perhaps, of rather a more bluish or slaty 

 hue. There are, however, certain definite patciies, disposed with perfect 

 bilateral symmetry, in which the pigment is entirely absent, and the skin is 

 of a pale reddish brown or ' flesh-colour.' These patches are of various 

 sizes, sometimes minute and clustered together, producing only an indistinct 

 mottling of the surface, sometimes in large clear spaces, but which are 



