M9 



October 13, 1835. 

 Richard Owen, Esq., in the Chair. 



Mr. Bennett called the attention of the Meeting to a Pteropbw 

 Bat which had recently been obtained from the neighbourhood of 

 the river Gambia, and which was exhibited. He directed especial 

 notice to two large tufts of white hairs placed upon its shoulders 

 and forming a very conspicuous feature in its appearance. These, 

 he remarked, might probably cover cutaneous glands destined for the 

 preparation of a secretion fitted to defend that part of the animal in 

 its passage through the air, or perhaps to attract the opposite sex. 

 It could scarcely be conceived that they have any influence in in- 

 creasing the buoyancy of the animal ; although the backward posi- 

 tion of the wings might seem to render necessary such a supple- 

 mental aid : their position in advance of the ordinary alar membranes 

 gives them, in fact, some resemblance to supplementaiy wings. 



He stated that on account, chiefly, of the position of the wings so 

 far backward as almost to seem to be placed behind the centre of 

 gravitj', he was disposed to consider that the Bat exhibited might 

 be regarded as the type of a new genus, to which the name of Epo- 

 mophoriis might be given. But the genus would, he conceived, rest 

 almost entirely on this single character, and he hesitated to propose 

 it definitively until he had an opportunity of examining a specimen 

 preser^'ed in spirit, and consequently not liable to that distortion to 

 which the individual skin exhibited might have been subjected. In 

 one of the two other species of Pteropi previously obtained from the 

 same country by Mr. Kendall, and brought under the notice of the 

 Society on July 14 (page 100) by Mr. Ogilby, the same backward 

 position of the wings exists. In dentary characters the new spe- 

 cies agrees with those just referred to, the only exception being in 

 the presence of a third abnormal incisor on the left of the upper 

 jaw. 



Regarding it as a form of some interest to zoologists, Mr. Bennett 

 stated his intention to describe it more fully in a paper which he pro- 

 posed to prepare on the subject. He characterized it as the 



Pteropus epomophorus. Pter. pallide brunneus, postici pallidior ; 



ventre albido ; scopd humerali alhd magnd. 

 Long. tot. 64 poll. ; capitis, 2^; expansio alarum, 12. 

 Hab. in regione Gambiensi. 



Professor Agassiz, at the request of the Chairman, explained his 

 views of the affinities and distribution of the Fishes of the family 

 CyprinidxB. 



No. XXXIV. — Proceedings of the Zoological Society. 



