70 
and the half-matured embryo in the egg is destroyed by the disturb- 
ances which prevail during the activity of the summer lightning. 
“Electricity being entirely confined to the surface of bodies, and 
the quantities they are capable of receiving not following the pro- 
portion of their bulk, but depending principally upon the extent of 
surface over which it is spread, the exterior of bodies may be posi- 
tively or negatively electric, while the interior is in a state of perfect 
neutrality. Under isolation the quiescent state of the electricity 
occasions no sensible change in their properties. ‘The power of re- 
taining the electric fluid depending upon the shape, and the sphere 
and the spheroid retaining it readily, while it escapes from a point, 
or is received by a point with facility, the enveloping the eggs of 
birds in dried and non-conducting materials spread entirely and 
widely round is a means of steadily maintaining a uniform distri- 
bution of the electricity, and with it of preserving that state of qui- 
escence by which no sensible changes are communicated to the em- 
bryo within. Thus at a time when the air is excessively disturbed 
- by explosions of lightning and by the shocks of thunder-storms, the 
business of incubation is carried on in a space completely isolated, 
and the egg suffers no change of property by the varied electric ac- 
tion that is prevailing in the free atmosphere around.” 
Some notes on the Wild Antelope of Khaurism (Antilope Saiga, 
Pall.), by Capt. James Abbott, communicated by K. E. Abbott, Esq., 
Corr. Memb., were read. The author, after giving a description of 
the animal, adds, “It lives in large flocks in the steppe between the 
river Oxus and the Caspian. When pursued it bounds like the An- 
telope, but being much smaller and less vigorous, is ran down by 
the coarse Persian Greyhound of the Turcoman and Kuzzauk. The 
Turkish name is Kaigh and Soghoke.”’ 
Mr. Gould exhibited a specimen of the Apteryx Australis, in which 
the beak was shorter, and also more dilated at the base, than in 
other specimens which he had examined. 
Mr. Yarrell read his description of the trachea of a male Spur- 
winged Goose, Anser Gambensis and Chenaloper Gambensis of au- 
thors. 
‘«* A male specimen of this native of Northern and Western Africa 
died lately in the gardens of the Zoological Society, after living in 
confinement in the aviary nearly twelve years. Advantage was taken 
of this opportunity to examine the organ of voice, which is generally 
found to possess some remarkable variety in form throughout the 
species of the extensive family of Anatide, and this expectation was 
realized. The windpipe of the Spur-winged Goose, which is, I be- 
lieve, undescribed, measures about sixteen inches in length; the tube 
flattened throughout, except at the bottom, where it is nearly cylin- 
drical. The bone at the bottom of the trachea, from which the bron- 
chial tubes have their origin, is again flattened, and has on the left 
side a bony protuberance, forming a hollow labyrinth, about five- 
eighths of an inch wide, seven-cighths of an inch high, and three- 
