45 



April 25th, 1837. 

 Thomas Bell, Esq. in the Chair. 



A letter was read addressed to N. A. Vigors, Esq., M.P., from 

 Mr. Henry Denny of Leeds, stating that a fine male specimen of the 

 Snowy Owl had been recently captured at Selby in Yorkshire. 



Mr. Gray then exhibited the horn of a Deer supposed to come 

 from India, which he considered as characteristic of a new species 

 peculiar for the elongate acute form of the basal branch, which ap- 

 pears to have been depressed, and directed obliquely across the fore- 

 head of the animal. This horn, which had not attained its full period 

 of growth, agreed with that of the Rein Deer, in being palmate, and 

 in having the basal frontlet depressed, in which latter character it is 

 allied to an Indian species called by Mr. Gray Cervus Smithii, 

 known by a drawing belonging to the collection of General Hard wick 

 in the British Museum. 



Mr. Gray then adverted to some observations which he had made 

 on a former occasion during a discussion upon the nature of the re- 

 lation existing between the Argonaut shell and the Cephalopod 

 which inhabits it. On that occasion, one argument made use of by 

 him in favour of the parasitic nature of this animal, was, that the 

 nucleus of the Argonaut shell is larger than could be contained 

 within the eggs which often accompany the Ocythcie. He is now 

 disposed to attach less importance to this circumstance, having re- 

 cently observed that the eggs of some moUusca, as the Buccinum 

 undatuni, prior to the period of hatching, are eight or ten times as 

 large in diameter as when first deposited. 



A paper was then read by Thomas Bell, Esq., entitled " Observa- 

 tions on the genus Galictis, with a description of a new species." 

 Mr. Bell in 1826 laid before the Zoological Club of the Linnean 

 Society some remarks upon a living female Grison which had been 

 several years in his possession, and he then proposed to consider the 

 species as constituting a new generic type, to which he gave the 

 name of Galictis, but without assigning its distinctive generic cha- 

 racters. Since that period the examination of a specimen in the 

 collection of the Zoological Society, exhibiting a distinct specific dif- 

 ference from the former, but agreeing with it in the more essential 

 particulars, has confirmed the j^ropriety of establishing this genus ; 

 and in the present communication the author points out the charac- 

 ters and affinities of Galictis, and gives a description of the new 

 species under the name of G. Allamandi, M. Allamand having figured 

 a specimen in the fourth edition of Bufltbn's Natural History, which 

 may perhaps be identical with this second species. In constituting 

 this new genus of Mustelida, Mr. Bell has been guided solely by the 

 semiplantigrade form of the foot, for in no other important charac- 

 ter does it deviate from the typical genus of that family. A know- 



