44 DR. p. L. SCLATER ON COSMETORNIS VEXILLARIA. [Feb. 12, 



fifty) crustaceous spines, bluntish, and with a short coriaceous bristle 

 at the end ; caudal ring on its dorsal surface with twenty-two long 

 outstanding crustaceous spines tipped hke the others, each of the 

 lateral margins with two rows, like combs, of crustaceous spines, 

 which meet behind and terminate at the end of the lateral spines — two 

 of the four which arm the hinder margin of the caudal ring. This 

 hinder margin has three notches, the middle one deepest, their pro- 

 jecting sides ending in the spines, the sides of which are pectinated 

 with smaller spines. Segment of raptorial leg before the claw rather 

 slender, not bulged at the end beneath. The claw minutely serrulate 

 on the inside near the tip. From the indications of marbling in the 

 dried specimen, this curious Gonodactylus is most probably finely 

 and variedly coloured when alive. 



February 12th, 1861. 

 John Gould, Esq., F.R.S., V.P., in the Chair. 



Dr. P. L. Sclater exhibited a specimen of a Caprimulgine bird 

 closely aUied to, if not identical with, Cosmetornis vexiUaria (Gould), 

 from the collection of Edmund Gabriel, Esq., H.B.M.'s Commissioner 

 at Loanda in Angola. This bird had been presented to Mr. Gabriel 

 by the captain of a vessel, who stated that it had flown on board 

 his ship off the west coast of Africa. Of the only two previously 

 examined specimens of this species, one (Mr. Gould's type, now in 

 the British Museum) was said to have come from Socotra ; and the 

 other, in Sir William Jardine's collection, had likewise been taken 

 on board a vessel in the Mozambique Channel. 



Dr. Sclater also exhibited, on behalf of Capt. Abbott, the hoof of 

 a bull {Bos taurus, var. domesticus) from the Falkland Islands, in 

 which the hoof was abnormally lengthened, one of the toes turning 

 upwards and curving round backwards. Captain Abbott, the owner 

 of the specimen, stated that such malformations were not uncommon 

 among the wild cattle in the Falklands, and were considered attri- 

 butable to their always living on the soft boggy ground there every- 

 where prevalent, 



Mr. Bartlett exhibited living examples from the Society's Mena- 

 gerie of two singular hybrid Ducks — one pair being the produce of 

 the Summer Duck {Aix sjjonsa) and Fochard (Fiiliffula ferina), and 

 the other of the Summer Duck and Castaneous Duck {F. nyroca). 



The following papers were read : — 



