124 



September 10. 1839. 

 William Yarrell, Esq., Vice-President, in the Chair. 



The following letter, addressed by M. Baillon to Mr. Waterhouse, 

 was read. It is dated Abbeville, July 16, 1839 : — 



" M. De la Motte has just informed me that when he had the 

 pleasure of seeing you in London you expressed a wish to know the 

 name of a new species of Goose which I described in 1833 in the 

 catalogue of the birds observed in the department of the Somme, and 

 ■which I have inserted in the ' Memoirs of the Society of Emulation 

 of Abbeville.' To this bird I gave the name Anser brachyrhynchus, 

 because it appeared to me that one of its most striking characters 

 consisted in the shortness of its beak. This species has been sent 

 by me, under that name, to the museums at Paris, Turin, Mayence, 

 &c. I have also forwarded two specimens, exhibiting the young and 

 adult states, to M. Temminck for the museum at Leyden, and this 

 learned naturalist stated that he would give an account of the spe- 

 cies (under the above-mentioned name) in the fourth volume of his 

 ' Manuel d'Ornithologie.' 



" In the same catalogue I described two new species of Scolopax, 

 one under the name of S. LaMottei, and the other under that of S. 

 pygmeea. M. Temminck does not admit that the first is a good spe- 

 cies, and for the same reason he will not admit the Scolopax Brehmii, 

 ■which, like my new species, diifers only from the Scolopax gallinago 

 in the number of tail-feathers. Sc. Brehmii has sixteen tail-feathers, 

 whilst LaMottei has only twelve ; the last-mentioned species differs 

 moreover in being of a much smaller sizle than the common snipe. 

 The <S. pygmaa M. Temminck regards as a good species, and he in- 

 tends to insert it in his work. Like S. gallinago, it has fourteen tail- 

 feathers, but it is of a much smaller size than that species ; it is even 

 smaller than the S. gallinula. Two specimens of this new species, 

 resembling each other, were killed in the same week, and furnished 

 me with the materials of my description. A new species of Anthus 

 and four new small quadrupeds are also described by me in the cata- 

 logue ; two of the quadrupeds belong to the genus Arvicola, and the 

 remaining two belong to the genus Vespertilio." 



The following paper, by George Gulliver, Esq., J'.R.S., Assistant- 

 Surgeon to the Royal Regiment of Horse Guards, entitled " Ob- 

 servations on the Muscular Fibres of the CEsophagus and Heart in 

 some of the Mammalia," was read. 



" There seems to be considerable difference of opinion as to the 

 extent to which the muscular fibre of animal life invests the gullet, 

 a discrepancy which has probably arisen from the want of a sufficient 

 number of comparative observations on the lower animals. It has 



No. LXXXI, 



