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The following papers were read :— 
1. OpsERVATIONS ON THE Nests or Hummine Birps. 
By Joun Goutp, F.R.S. etc. 
Mr. Gould exhibited a collection of nests of Humming Birds, ex- 
emplifying the habitual characteristic structures of several genera. 
The first group to which his remarks were directed were the Hermit 
birds (Phaéthornis), which invariably build at the extremity of leaves, 
perhaps from the protection which that situation affords against the 
attacks of monkeys and other predatory animals. Oreotrochilus builds 
a beautiful nest, attached to the sides of rocks. Heliomaster meso- 
leucus makes a nest in a beautiful species of moss, depending from 
the trees. Most of the nests are cup-shaped, some being placed in 
forks, some on branches, some on leaves, some in ferns; they are 
shallow and delicately formed, ornamented in the most varied man- 
ner with feathers, or with festoons of moss and lichen, especially in 
the genus Hylocharis. The attachment of the lichen and other orna- 
ments is effected by means of fine cobwebs. 
The differences in the eggs of Humming Birds are not very ob- 
servable ; they are invariably two in number, white and oblong, with 
one supposed exception,—namely, that of a species inhabiting the 
Upper Amazon, which, according to Mr. Edwards, lays a spotted egg. 
But the differences of structure in the nests sufficiently corroborate 
the generic divisions into which these birds have been separated by 
modern ornithologists. 
Most of the nests exhibited were from the collection of Mr. Reeves 
of Rio, who presented them to Mr. Gould in the most liberal man- 
ner, with a view to assisting him in the completion of his monograph 
of this family. 
2. DescripTION or A New Species oF Sorex, From INDIA. 
By R. TEMPLETON. 
SorEx? PURPURASCENS, 0. sp. 
Dark slate-coloured, with a tinge of purple; snout beneath and 
lower lip brownish, with a mesial groove above, running back half 
the distance to the eyes; front covered with black hairs having white 
tips, and gradually increasing in length as they extend backwards to 
the eyes, and arched a little forwards; eyes small and very black ; 
ears nearly naked and slaty brown ; belly slaty grey ; legs slaty brown, 
thinly covered with short greyish hairs, which project in a little tuft 
over each claw, beneath naked; the toes with eight or nine trans- 
verse wrinkles ; tail about two-thirds as long as the body, covered 
with short bristly hairs, and appearing beyond the middle somewhat 
grey from white annular wrinkles; furnished for about two-thirds of 
its length with long black bristly hairs. 
Length of body, 23 inches; tail, 13. 
