PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



January 14, 1851. 



Prof. Owen, F.R.S., Vice President, in the Chair. 



The foUowiDg papers were read : — 



1. On a new and most remarkable form in Ornithology. 

 By John Gould, F.R.S. etc. 



(Aves, PI. XXXV.) 



I have the pleasure of introducing to the notice of the Society on 

 the present occasion the most extraordinary bird I have seen for many 

 years, and which forms part of a collection made on the banks of the 

 upper part of the White Nile, by Mansfield Parkyns, Esq., of Not- 

 tingham. For this bird I propose the generic name of Bal^ni- 

 ceps, with the following characters : — 



Bill enormously robust, equal in breadth and depth ; sides of the 

 upper mandible much swollen ; culmen slightly elevated, depressed 

 in the middle of its length, and terminating at the point in a very 

 powerful hook ; tomise sharp, turning inwards and very convex ; 

 lower mandible very powerful, with a sharp concave cutting edge and 

 a truncated tip ; nostrils scarcely perceptible, and placed in a narrow 

 slit at the base of the bill, close to the culmen ; orbits denuded ; 

 head very large ; occiput slightly crested ; wings very powerful, the 

 third, fourth and fifth feathers the longest ; tail of moderate length 

 and square in form ; plumage soft and yielding ; skin of the throat 

 loose, and capable of dilatation into an extensive pouch ; tibise and 

 tarsi lengthened, the latter a fourth shorter than the former ; the 

 lower third of the tibiae denuded ; toes four in number, all extremely 

 long, and without the slightest vestige of interdigital membrane ; 

 hind-toe on the same plane as the anterior ones and directed inwards ; 

 tibiae and tarsi reticulated, the reticulations becoming much smaller 



No. CCXIX. — Proceedings of the Zoological Society. 



