= 
) 
1889. ] PROF. BELL ON BIPALIUM KEWENSE. 
“ As a general remark about the Guus, I will add that these animals 
are perfectly hardy and stand all the damp, cold, and snow of a Dutch 
winter without the slightest difficulty, protected as they are by a 
woolly coat which in autumn grows under their ordinary hair. They 
are also very precocious, as the females produce offspring before 
entering into their third year. Thus, for instance, I have this year 
bred a young one from a female aged twenty-two months only, and 
she reared it. To lovers of nature nothing is more interesting than 
a field with a herd of these animals running and gamboling in the 
most frantic manner, on which occasions the ridiculous-looking light- 
coloured little calves generally take the lead. Their wonderful 
activity and eccentric movements joined to their comparatively 
heavily built frame are always fresh sources of surprise, and forcibly 
remind one of Harris’s allusion to the Gnu, namely, ‘the most 
whimsical of nature’s vagaries.” He could not have expressed 
himself better ! 
“Yours &e., 
«PF. E. Buaauw.” 
Professor Newton, V.-P., exhibited a specimen of the so-called 
Pennula millsi, remarking :— 
“ By the kindness of my friend Mr. Scott B. Wilson I ara able 
to show you to-night one of the five known specimens of the bird 
described by Judge Dole in his ‘ List of Birds of the Hawaiian 
Islands,’ reprinted from the ‘ Hawaiian Annual’ for 1879 (p. 14), 
under the name of Pennula millsi', and believed to be extinct. Mr. 
Wilson tells me that all these specimens were obtained some thirty 
years ago by thelate Mr. Mills, and that no one has since been able 
to meet with the species; but knowing the skulking habits of so 
many of the smaller Rails and Crakes, as well as the very local dis- 
tribution of many of the birds of the Sandwich Islands, I think it 
quite possible that the species may still exist, though undoubtedly 
it has been frequently sought in vain. As Mr. Sclater has already 
pointed out (Ibis, 1880, p. 241), this is doubtless the so-called 
‘wingless bird’ of Mr. Pease (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1862, p. 145); but 
I must add that in almost every respect it appears to me to agree 
with the ‘Dusky Rail’ of Latham (Synopsis, iii. pt. 1, p. 237), 
upon which was founded the Radlus obscurus of Gmelin (Syst. Nat. 
i. p- 718)—a bird not since recognized, so far as I can discover. 
The identification of the two species, if it can be made, I leave to the 
discrimination of Mr. Wilson when he comes to work out the fine 
collections he has made in the Hawaiian Kingdom.” 
Prof. Bell stated that he had that morning received a letter from 
a gentleman at Manchester, in which he was informed that Bipalium 
kewense had been observed to eat earthworms. A similar fact had 
? Accidentally misprinted mid/ed. 
