December 14, 1841. 
Richard Owen, Esq., Vice-President, in the Chair. 
‘A letter from the Society’s corresponding member, J. B. Harvey, 
Esq., was read. ‘ 
A letter from Mr. Fraser, dated from the mouth of the river Nun, 
W. Africa, August 14, 1840, was next read. In the first part of 
his letter, Mr. Fraser, the naturalist to the Niger expedition, alludes 
to a collection of specimens which he had formed during his passage 
out, and which he had forwarded to England. ‘This collection con- 
sists of three mammals, nearly fifty birds, twenty-eight reptiles, 
upwards of thirty fishes, and about forty boxes, bags, &c. containing 
chiefly insects and shells. The writer expresses a wish that this 
collection may not be regarded as a specimen of what may be here- 
after expected, since he had purposely abstained, as much as possi- 
ble, from using his materials for preserving specimens until his arri- 
val at the Niger. 
The letter moreover contains some interesting facts relating to the 
habits and habitats of certain animals. Among the skins of Mam- 
malia, Mr. Fraser observes, he had forwarded a Galago which was 
shot at Cape Coast, close to the town, in a tamarind tree, where he 
also found its nest, built, or rather laid, in a fork formed by the 
branches. The nest was composed of loose leaves. The animal 
resembled the Loris gracilis, but its limbs were stouter. ‘he fol- 
lowing monkeys, Mr. Fraser states, appear to be found in the neigh- 
bourhood of Sierra Leone: Troglodytes niger, Colobus ursinus, Cerco- 
pithecus fuliginosus, common, Cerc. Sabeus, and Cynocephalus Papio. 
The banks of the beach are everywhere perforated with large round 
holes, which the natives informed Mr. Fraser were inhabited by an 
animal which they call the Ground-pig, which is the Aulacodus Swin- 
derianus of Temminck. At Bassa, the anthor of the letter saw some 
skins of Cercopithecus Diana, said to be common in that district; he 
also saw a skin of an antelope, apparently the Antilope Ogilbyi, 
Waterh. AtCape Coast the Cercopithecus petaurista is to be found, 
and likewise the Colobus leucomeros. Skins of the last-mentioned 
animal as well as of the Cercopithecus Diana were extremely plentiful 
at Accra. 
The following paper, by Mr. Lovell Reeve, ‘On Lingula, a genus 
of Brachiopodous Mollusks,” was then read :— 
“The Lingule belong to a group of Bivalve Mollusks differing 
materially in their system of organization from any other of the 
great tribe of Acephala. They have received the title of ‘the 
Brachiopoda,’ on account of their being provided with two long 
No. CVII.—Procerrpines or tHE Zoo. Soc. 
