36 



NATURE 



\Nov. II, 1880 



members. On the contrary, every Fellow has to contribute 

 an annual sum towards the maintenance of the Society's 

 estabhshment, unless he prefers to pay a life-composition 

 in lieu thereof. Moreover, the Society are so fortunate 



Fig I —The Mubk d^ 



of liors, tigers, elephants, and other well-known animals 

 must always be kept up for the delectation of the ordinary 

 public, and for the maintenance of the best possible living 

 series of animals, it is also thus in their power to acquire 

 animals of specially scientific value, in which the 

 casual observer would take little interest, and 

 which would, therefore, be quite ineligible except 

 in a scientific point of view. This course of action 

 has been adopted for many years, more especially 

 since the foundation of the office of "Prosector" 

 to the Society. For these special acquisitions not 

 only delight the eyes of the intellectual observer 

 while they live, but furnish the prosector with 

 subjects for his studies when dead. Those who 

 are acquainted with the Proceedings and Transac- 

 tions of the Zoological Society of London will be 

 well aware of the amount of work that has thus 

 been accomplished as regards the anatomy of 

 many of the rarer birds and mammals. 



It is, however, by no means by purchase only 

 that rare animals are added to the Zoological 

 Society's collection. Numerous friends and cor- 

 respondents in almost every corner of the earth 

 are in constant communication with the Secretary 

 of the Society, and are ever endeavouring to obtain 

 specimens that may be acceptable to the collec- 

 tion. In fact the donations have of late years 

 become so numerous that they have not unfre- 

 quently rivalled in number and interest the objects 

 acquired by purchase. Taking the acquisitions 

 from these two sources together, there are always 

 a considerable number of objects in the Society's 

 collection that specially invite the attention of 

 the observant naturalist. Aiiiongst these rarities 

 there are at the present moment the following, 

 of which illustrations are given, drawn upon 

 « Dir tr mmtir '"^ '^^ ^'"^ "'' wood by Mr. J. Smit, an artist constantly em- 



ployed by the Zoological Society, 

 as to be unencumbered by borrowed capital. They 1 i. The musk-deer [Moschiis nioscJiiferus) was well 

 have consequently no burden in the shape of interest known to the older writers on zoology as the animal that 

 to be provided for. It follows that after putting aside | has from long periods of time supphed the " musk " of 



commerce. This scent is still much in 

 , ' ' - --) vogue in the East, but in Western 



Europe has been long superseded by 

 more refined perfumes, though it may 

 Ije remarked that one of the fashionable 

 -^ ^. ■, dealers in Bond Street still keeps a 



stuffed musk-deer in his window, and 

 is doubtless ready to supply the product 

 in question. 



The musk-deer was until recently 

 usually associated with another group of 

 mammals to which it has really very 

 little affinity. Dr. Gray and other syste- 

 matists united it with the Chevrotains 

 fe {Trag?il!ii) of India and tropical Africa 

 — a group of ruminants remarkable for 

 their small size and hornless heads, and 

 presenting somewhat of the appearance 

 of diminutive antelopes. M. Alphonse 

 Milne-Edwards of Paris was, we believe, 

 the first naturalist to show that this 

 allocation was unnatural. In his excel- 

 lent essay on the Chevrotains, published 

 in 1864, M. Milne-Edwards proved con- 

 clusively that these little-understood 

 animals constitute a peculiar family of 

 ungulates quite distinct from either the 

 Bovida' or CervidK, and in fact in some 

 respects approaching more nearly to the 

 pigs (Suidse). The correctness of these 

 observations has been since fully demonstrated by Prof. 

 Flower, Mr. Garrod, and other systematists. 



The musk-deer therefore remains unique in its own 

 group, and constitutes a special division of the Cervidje 



Fig 2— The Jipa; 



'**^*^/ 



; Wdf (C!«;j /wd,J>hylm) 



rom their income a sum sufficient to meet the annual 

 expenditure, they are able to devote the surplus to new 

 buildings in the Gardens, and to the acquisition of new 

 and rare subjects for the menagerie. While the supply 



