May 5, 1870] 
NATURE 9 
winds. This is, we believe, the first attempt to show the 
force of the wind in a chart of this nature. The area 
embraced lies between the equator and 10°N. and 20° and 
30° W., and contains the observations of five years for the 
month of November. When the other eleven months of 
_ the year are represented each by a chart, mariners will be 
able to choose a way across “the Doldrums” where they 
may be likely to find the most favourable winds and 
currents. From this it will be understocd that the current 
chart is constructed in a similar style. 
Principal Dawson, of M‘Gill College, Montreal, who 
has just arrived with a fine collection of fossils, could 
not have desired a better opportunity for exhibiting 
them than was afforded by the conversazione. There, 
while showing his specimens to the éife of the 
scientific world, he could talk to them about the 
geological survey of. Canada, and the Peninsula of 
Gaspé, with its cliffs of ‘‘ Upper Silurian,” 600 feet in 
height, its ‘‘ Devonian sandstones” and “lower carbo- 
niferous deposits, and its arched rocks forming magnificent 
coast scenery. Among those fossils are two large tree- 
stems, Protavites Logani,a species of Psilophyton, anda 
Cyclostigma, the latter a genus previously met with no- 
where but in the Devonian rocks of Ireland. Other kinds 
include Cordaites, Psaronius, Antholithes, Asterophyllites, 
and a variety of ferns; and occurring in the animal 
remains, we find Cephalaspis, the first of the kind yet 
found in America, and AZachairacanthus, and other large 
fishes. As Dr. Dawson is to read a paper on these im- 
portant fossils at the Royal Society this evening, we may 
hope to see their story told in due time with suitable 
illustrations in the “ Philosophical Transactions.” 
Dr. Carpenter exhibited with microscopes, with the actual 
specimens, and with a considerable breadth of well-executed 
diagrams, some of his treasures from the “deep, deep 
sea.” In friendly neighbourhood, Prof. Tennant showed 
fossil specimens of some of the same creatures. And not far 
distant were hung Lieut. Palmer’s clever drawings of living 
animals from the surface of the sea, captured in the China 
Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic. These drawings 
testify to Lieut. Palmer’s skill and industry. The animals 
are represented life-size and in their natural colours. 
Among them we observed the Glodzgerina, which may, 
perhaps, be taken as evidence that this creature does not, 
as some have supposed, exclusively inhabit the bottom of 
the sea. Considering that there is always room for 
natural history researches, the Admiralty should be able 
to find such employment for Lieut. Palmer as would exer- 
cise his artistic faculty and his habit of observation. 
We are far from having exhausted the subject, but we 
must close here. Need we pause to draw a moral, or to 
point out that in such a conversazione as we have attempted 
to describe there is a tangible gain to science? It is well 
for inventors and experimentalists that they should hear 
what contemporaries say of their schemes and experi- 
ments, and much can be said and done with advantage 
amid the free talk of a general gathering which could not 
be permitted in the formal meeting of a scientific society. 
Let proper discrimination be used in the selection of 
articles for exhibition : science will then continue to benefit 
by soirées. 
RECENT ACCESSIONS TO THE ZOOLOGICAL 
SOCIETY S GARDENS 
Toe collection of living animals belonging to the 
Zoological Society of London and kept in their 
gardens in the Regent’s Park contains, as most of the 
readers of NATURE are probably aware, by far the largest 
and most nearly complete living series of representatives 
of the various classes of Vertebrate animals that has ever 
been brought together in one spot. Great as the exertions 
that have been made of late years in some of the corre- 
sponding establishments on the Continent, the sister 
societies have never succeeded in rivalling the English 
collection as a whole, although they have occasionally bid 
fair to surpass it in some particular point. 
The whole number of animals in the Zoological Society’s 
Gardens usually somewhat exceeds two thousand—on the 
first of January last it was 2,031—consisting of 598 
mammals, 1,245 birds, and 170 reptiles and batrachians, 
besides the fishes in the aquarium, which do not appear to 
be included in the annual census. Constant additions are 
made to the series, not only by purchase, but also by gifts 
of correspondents in every part of the world, and by 
exchange with the continental establishments. By these 
means the collection is kept up to its normalstandard—the 
death-rate, as in all living zoological collections, being, in 
spite of every care and precaution, extremely heavy. During 
the past month of March go additions are recorded in the 
Society’s register as having been made to the Menagerie. 
33 of these were by gift, 33 by purchase, 4 by exchange, 
5 by birth, and 15 were animals received ‘‘on deposit.” 
The decrease during the same period by death and 
departures was 96, showing a total loss to the collection 
during the month of 6 individuals. 
The most noticeable amongst the acquisitions to the 
Menagerie in March last were the four following :— 
(1). Examples of two very fine new pheasants, recently 
discovered in Upper Assam by the well-known Indian 
ornithologist, Dr. J. C. Jerdon, and named by him Lopho- 
phorus sclateri, and Ceriornis bly(hit. These birds are 
both of very great interest, not only as being brilliant ad- 
ditions to the two magnificent groups to which they belong, 
but also as being ¢yfzca/ specimens, 2.¢., the identical speci- 
mens upon whichDr. Jerdon has founded these two species. 
The “ Monaul,” or Impeyan pheasant of the southern 
slopes of the Himalaya, is one of the best known of Indian 
game-birds, and at the same time one of the most mag- 
nificently-coloured birds of British India, insomuch that 
Mr. Gould has chosen it as the representative bird for the 
cover of the numbers of his great work on the ‘‘ Birds of 
Asia.” For many years this bird was believed to stand 
quite alone, and to be the sole existing representative of 
the genus Lophophorus. A short time ago, however, 
Monsignor Chauveau, titular Bishop of Lhassa, who has 
recently found it necessary to retire from his Tibetan 
diocese into the confines of China, sent home from 7Zua- 
tsten-liew, in the western part of the province of Sechuen, 
where he has taken up his abode, a collection of birds, 
amongst which were a pair of a very fine new species of 
Impeyan pheasant. These specimens, after being named 
in France Lophophorus Lhuyst, in compliment to M. 
Drouyn de Lhuys, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, 
whom we suppose the describer was anxious, for some 
good reason, to propitiate, passed into the collection 
of the British Museum, where they may be now seen in 
the Ornithological Gallery. It was thus proved that a 
second Impeyan pheasant is found on the northern 
slopes of the great central range of Asia, where it doubt- 
less occupies a corresponding elevation and fulfils 
similar functions in the economy of nature to the well- 
known bird of the Indian Himalayas. 
The discovery of the present bird by Dr. Jerdon, which, 
although somewhat different in certain details of structure 
from the two former, belongs strictly to the same genus, 
serves to further prove to us how much still remains to be 
done in zoological discovery, even amongst what are gene- 
rally supposed to be the best-known divisions of the Verte- 
brata. Being crestless, Sclater’s Impeyan, which has been 
named by Dr. Jerdon after the secretary of the Zoological 
Society of London, renders the old generic term /opho- 
phorus \ess applicable to the group. But in other points 
it does not materially differ, and at any rate is sufficiently 
near the common Impeyan to induce the only known in- 
dividual of Sclater’s Impeyan now in the Zoological So- 
ciety’s gardens to be quite ready to associate with a female 
of the latter which had been placed along with him, 
