187L] MR. P. L. SCLATER ON ANIMALS IN THE MENAGERIE. 221 



March 7, 1871. 



Professor Flower, F.R.S., V.P., in the Chair. 



The following papers were read : — 



1. Notes on rare or little-known Animals now or lately living 

 in the Society's Gardens. By P. L. Sclater, M.A., 

 Ph.D., F.R.S., Secretary to the Society. — Part I. Mam- 

 malia. 



[Eeceived February 17, 1871.] 

 (Plates XIV.-XVII.) 



In preparing for publication a fifth edition of the list of vertebrated 

 animals in the Society's Gardens, on which I am now engaged, I have 

 found it necessary to make researches into the history of some of the 

 rarer and less-known species that have been represented in the Me- 

 nagerie during the past ten years, and I beg leave to offer to the 

 Society some remarks upon them. 



The present part of my communication will relate mainly to the 

 Quadrumana, of which the Society's collection is always large, and 

 frequently embraces doubtful specimens, only to be determined ac- 

 curately after their decease. But I propose to continue my notes 

 through the entire series of Vertebrates, devoting special attention to 

 such species as have been described as new to science from specimens 

 living in the Society's Gardens. 



1. Macacus lasiotus, Gray, P. Z. S. 1868, p. 60, pi. vi. ; Cat. 

 of Monkeys (1870), p. 129. 



The death of the typical specimen of this Macaque (which took 

 place on the 25th May, 1870) has enabled us to decide the question 

 whether, as Mr. Bartlett and I have always suspected, the animal 

 had not been mutilated by the removal of its tail. There can be no 

 longer any doubt on this point. On examination of the pelvis and 

 vertebral column, which 1 now exhibit, it will be seen that the whole 

 of the caudal appendage below the third caudal vertebra has been 

 removed by severance through the middle of the fourth vertebra, 

 and that the divided bone has ossified over. 



It is, therefore, quite manifest that this Macaque has nothing what- 

 ever to do with the short-tailed group of Macacus, as its describer, 

 who considered the want of the tail as " evidently a natural defi- 

 ciency" has suggested, but is simply, what it looks so very much -;. 

 like, one of the Rhesus group with its tail cut off. 



On comparing the skin with the specimens of Macacus rhesus in 

 the British Museum, I find it different mainly in its larger size, more 

 hairy ears, and the deep rufous terminations of the hairs of the back 

 and flanks. In the last respect it is perhaps more like the typical 

 specimen of M. itelops of the Himalayas. But if, as we believe, the 



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