77 
December 13, 1842. 
Prof. Rymer Jones in the Chair. 
A letter from A. N. Shaw, Esq., Corresponding Member, dated 
Dhawar, October 14, 1842, was read. It announces that a young 
Tiger and a Bear, which that gentleman had presented to the So- 
ciety, were in the possession of Sir Jamsetjie Jejubhoy, of Bombay, 
who had kindly undertaken to forward them to England free of ex- 
pense. 
Two letters from the Society’s Corresponding Member, E. D. 
Dickson, Esq., were read. The first, dated Constantinople, October 
2, 1842, announces that Mr. Dickson had forwarded as a present to 
the Society a collection of specimens, preserved in spirit, part of 
which was a donation from himself and part from H. J. Ross, Esq., 
Corresponding Member. The second letter is dated Tripoli, Octo- 
ber 24, 1842; it acknowledges the receipt of letters, &c. from the 
Society, and states that another collection had been forwarded for 
the Society. Some of the specimens in this latter collection were 
procured by Mr. Ross at Samsoon, and the remainder by Mr. Dick- 
son. 
The following paper, by G. Newport, Esq., ‘‘On some new ge- 
nera of the class Myriapoda,’”’ was then read :— 
«The family Geophilide of Leach, composed of those little, gliding, 
wormlike Myriapodes so abundant in our gardens, and yet so imper- 
fectly known to the scientific naturalist, includes at least two distinct 
genera, one of which only has hitherto been characterised. Dr. Leach 
himself, to whom we are indebted for the foundation of nearly all 
the scientific knowledge we possess of these animals, appears to have 
regarded one of the five native species with which he was acquainted 
as distinct from the others, and placed it accordingly in a division of 
his genus Geophilus, founding his divisions on the comparative length 
of the joints of the antenne. These divisions, with the same di- 
stinguishing characters, have been retained by M. Gervais, who in 
1837 published a monograph on the whole class, and added a third 
section to the genus Geophilus, composed of two species, one of which, 
Geophilus ferrugineus, had been described by Koch; and the other, 
Geophilus mazillaris, was then first described by M. Gervais as a 
new species. It is this division, added by M. Gervais, the Geophili 
mazillares, which I now propose to establish as a separate genus, 
under the name of Mecistocephalus, the characters of which, derived 
from the peculiarly elongated form of the head, are as distinctly 
marked as in any genus of this order. 
“In acollection of Myriapoda, from the magnificent cabinet of the 
No. CXIX.—Proceepines or THE Zoou. Soc, 
