131 
habitually preys upon other Snakes, and is currently said to be a 
deadly enemy of the Cobra. I have taken a Tropidonatus umbratus 
about two-thirds the length of its devourer from the stomach of this 
species. Another ophiophagous species with the Cobra hood is 
Hamadryas hannah of Cantor, or Maia vettata of Elliot, a spe- 
cimen of which, 9 feet long, I obtained in the Midnapore jungle. 
Mr. Layard some time ago informed me of a popular notion 
among the natives of Ceylon respecting a “horn’’ which is said 
to grow sometimes, but very rarely, on the forehead of the Jackal ; 
and this horn is regarded by them as a specific of innumerable 
virtues. Strange to say, the same notion is equally current among 
the natives of Bengal, who believe that it ensures the prosperity of 
its possessor, and success in every undertaking. 
July 24, 1855. 
Professor Tennant, F.G.S., in the Chair. 
The following papers were read :— 
1. On THE Brrps RECEIVED IN COLLECTIONS FROM SANTA FE 
pi Bocota. By Purr Luriey Scuater, M.A., F.Z.8. 
(Aves, Pl. CHI. CIV.) 
The collections of South American bird skins in the hands of 
European dealers are mostly imported from Rio and Bahia in Brazil 
and from Cayenne, occasionally also from Para and the island of 
Trinidad. About sixteen or seventeen years ago birds were first 
received in Paris from a French collector resident in Sante Fé di 
Bogota, the capital of the republic of New Granada, and since that 
time, the natives having been taught the method of preparing skins, 
large collections have been constantly imported both into England 
and France from the same quarter. 
The species contained in these collections were, when first brought, 
for the most part new to science, and were described as such by 
M.M. De Lafresnaye, Boissoneau, Des Murs and Bourcier in 
Guérin’s ‘Revue Zoologique’ and ‘ Magasin de Zoologie’ in France, 
and some also in England by Mr. Fraser, in these Proceedings*. 
It is to the first-named of these gentlemen however, the Baron de 
Lafresnaye, of Lafresnaye, near Falaise, that we owe by far the 
largest part of the knowledge of New Grenadian ornithology we 
possess, upwards of seventy new species from that country being 
characterized in the numerous papers he has written upon that sub- 
ject in the ‘ Revue Zoologique.’ 
At the meeting of Italian savants held at Milan in 1844, Prince 
Charles Lucien Bonaparte read a catalogue of a collection of birds 
received from Bogota by the Marchese Orazio Antinori, containing 
* See P. Z. S. 1840, pp. 14, 22 and 59. 
