lAO DR. LiiXKEN ON TACHYGLOSSUS ACVLEATXJS. [Mar. 4, 



March 4, 1884. 

 E. W. H. Holdsworth, Esq., F.Z.S., in the Chair. 



Mr. Howard Saunders exhibited an example of Sabine's Gull, 

 Xema sahinii, shot last September in the Island of Mull, in the fully 

 adult summer plumage so rarely seen in Great Britain. Mr. 

 Saunders also exhibited an adult example in breeding-plumage of a 

 rare straggler from North America, Bonaparte's Gull, Larus Phila- 

 delphia, shot on Loch Lomond, about the end of April 1850, by 

 Sir George H. Leith-Buchanan, Bart. 



With regard to tlie specimen of the American Laughing Gull, 

 Larus atricilla, in the British Museum, said to be the one obtained 

 by Montagu at Winchelsea, in August 1774, he pointed out that it 

 in no way agreed with Montagu's description, and was certainly not 

 his bird. 



Mr. Saunders further exhibited a specimen of the Dusky Shear- 

 water, Puffinus griseus (Gm.), shot off Redcar by Mr. T. H. Nelson. 



The followino; extracts from a letter addressed to the Secretary by 

 Dr. Ch. W. Liitken, F.M.Z.S., was read :— 



Zoological Museum, 



University of Oopenliagen, 

 15th Feb., 1884. 



I take the liberty of placing before you a fact which has given 

 me some reason to suppose that Tachyglossus aculeatus, Shaw {T. 

 hystrix, auctt.), might possibly not be, as commonly supposed, the 

 only species of the genus inhabiting the continent of Australia. 



In the year 1848 a Mr. Bertelsen, returning from Australia 

 (Sydney), offered us for sale several skins of Mammalia, mostly 

 common and well-known species from south-east Australia. Among 

 those purchased for the Zoological Museum, was a skin of a female 

 Tachyglossus of the hystrix type, which was at that time entered in 

 the catalogue as T. hystrix. During several years no special attention 

 was paid to this specimen until 1883, when Mr. Winge, who was 

 entrusted with the task of drawing up a catalogue of some parts of the 

 collection of Mammalia, drew my attention to the fact that this skin 

 could not be that of a true T. aculeatus. At the same time he hinted 

 that it might possibly belong to the New-Guinean T. luwesi, described 

 a few years ago by Mr. Ramsay (Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W. vol. ii. 

 p. 32, 1878). The journal in which the original description of this 

 species is given, does not exist here in Copenhagen. At that time, 

 therefore, we were unable to verify this conjecture. Some time ago, 

 however, the note inserted by M. Alph. Dubois in the ' Bulletin 

 de la Societe Zoologique de France' for 1881, in which this gentle- 

 man has had the appropriate idea of adding to his account of Acan- 

 thoglossus bruijni a fresh translation of the description of T. lawesi, 

 happened to fall into my hands. Thus we were able to compare the 



