238 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
interest and importance. The specimens, which are examples of Asterias 
rubens and Solaster papposus, were killed by immersion in boiling water, 
and have, especially the latter, retained their original coloration. This 
method is so simple, and appears to be so successful, that we commend it 
to our readers; it will, no doubt, be as efficacious with foreign as with 
English species, and may be an important factor in improving the exhibited 
series of Echinoderms in the National Collection. We hope that Mr. Sibert 
Saunders, of Whitstable, will have many imitators. 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 
ZootocicaL Society or Lonpon. 
April 21, 1885.— Prof. W. H. Frowrr, LL.D., F.R.S., President, 
in the chair. ; 
The Secretary read a report on the additions that had been made to the 
Society’s Menagerie during the month of March, and called atttention to a 
female Roan Kangaroo, Macropus erubescens, being the third specimen of 
this Kangaroo acquired by the Society, and the first of the female sex: also 
to six Wattled Starlings, Dilophus carunculatus, from South Africa, and two 
Striated Colies, Colius striatus, both species being new to the collection. 
Mr. Sclater exhibited and remarked on a pair of Pheasants from Bala 
Murghab, Northern Afghanistan, belonging to H.R.H. the Prince of Wales. 
Mr. G. E. Dobson exhibited some skulls of Crocidura aranea, and pointed 
out that they possessed supernumerary teeth (premolars) in the upper jaw. 
The Secretary exhibited, on behalf of M. George Claraz, an egg of 
Darwin’s Rhea; and read some notes by M. Claraz on the habits and 
distribution of this Rhea. 
Mr. G. A. Boulenger exhibited a specimen of a Brazilian Snake which 
had partly swallowed an Amphisbenoid Lizard. The Lizard had in its 
turn partly eaten its way through the body of the Snake. 
A communication was read from Sir Richard Owen, containing remarks 
on the structure of the heart in Ornithorhynchus and in Apterya. 
Mr. Oldfield Thomas read a paper on the characters of the different 
forms of the Hchidna of Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea, all of which 
he was inclined to refer to one varying species. 
Dr. St. George Mivart read a memoir on the anatomy, classification, 
and distribution of the Arctoidean Carnivorous Mammals. The author, 
after briefly noticing the papers of other naturalists who have of late years 
treated of this subject, described the main facts concerning the anatomy’ 
of the various Arctoid genera, especially as regards their osteology and 
dentition, and gave detailed comparisons of the proportions of the various 
