1883.] MR. W. H. RAVENSCROFT ON CERVUS AXIS. 465 



The Secretary took this opportunity of calHng attention to the 

 increase in size and weight of the young male African Elephant 

 (Elephas africamis) which had taken place during the past year. 

 When purchased in July 1882 this animal was 4 feet in height, and 

 weighed 7 cwt. qrs. 4 lb. On the 8th October last the height 

 was found to have increased to 4 feet 1 1 inches, and the weight to 

 13 cwt. 2 qrs. 



A letter was read from Mr. G. B. Sowerby, Junr., relating to his 

 paper on five new species of Shells read before the Society on the 

 J 6th January, 1883. 



Mr. Sowerby proposed to change the name of Thracia jackson- 

 ensis given in this paper (see P. Z. S. 1883, p. 30) to Thracia bra- 

 zieri, the former name having been previously given to another species 

 described in the ' Journal of the Linnean Society ' by Mr. Edgar A . 

 Smith. 



The Secretary read the following extract from a letter addressed to 

 him by Mr. W. H. Ravenscroft, dated Colombo, 6th July, 1883 : — 



" I have lately noticed a fact new to me, though possibly well 

 known to students of natural history, in regard to the Spotted Deer 

 as it is called here {Cervns axis). We have five or six in an enclo- 

 sure near the house ; and a short time since one of the does gave 

 birth to a fawn. On the second day after the birth I noticed, at 

 about 4.30 in the afternoon, that the doe was quietly feeding by 

 herself, and that the fawn was nowhere within sight. I went into 

 the enclosure to search, and took five or six servants with me ; we 

 carefully hunted the ground within the enclosure, about a quarter 

 of an acre, which is bare of any bushes except at one end, where 

 there are a few clumps of cinnamon bushes and one biggish tree ; 

 we also hunted the ground outside the enclosure, as I thought that 

 possibly the fawn might have got out through the fence, as it might 

 readily have done. The search, however, was entirely fruitless. 

 Next morning the fawn was with its mother. I set a man to watch; 

 and one afternoon he told me that he bad watched the doe and 

 fawn into the bushes, and that the doe alone came out. It would 

 seem that the doe put the fawn to bed every afternoon, for about 

 eight or ten days, at about 4.30 p.m., and hid it so successfully that 

 though I knew within a few feet the place in which it was, I never 

 succeeded in finding it." 



The Secretary exhibited, on the part of Major C. H. T. Marshall, 

 F.Z.S., a specimen of a new Impeyan Pheasant from Chumba, 

 N.W. India, which Major Marshall was shortly intending to describe 

 under the name of Lophophorus chumbanus : also a partial albino 

 of Lophophorus impeyanus, and two other skins of males of the same 

 species in interesting stages of plumage. 



