1889.] PROF. BELL ON BIPALIUM KEWENSE. 5 



" As a general remark about the Griius, I will add that these animals 

 are perfectly hardy and stand all the damp, cold, and snow of a Dutch 

 winter without the slif^htest difficulty, protected as they are by a 

 woolly coat which in autumn grows under their ordinary hair. They 

 are also very precocious, as the females produce offspring before 

 entering into their third year. Thus, for instance, I have this year 

 bred a young one from a female aged twenty-two months only, and 

 she reared it. To lovers of nature nothing is more interesting than 

 a field with a herd of these animals running and gamboling in the 

 most frantic manner, on which occasions the ridiculous-looking light- 

 coloured little calves generally take the lead. Their wonderful 

 activity and eccentric movements joined to their comparatively 

 heavily built frame are always fresh sources of surprise, and forcibly 

 remind one of Harris's allusion to the Gnu, namely, 'the most 

 whimsical of nature's vagaries." He could not have expressed 

 himself better ! 



" Yours &c., 



" F. E. Blaauw." 



Professor Newton, V.-P., exhibited a specimen of the so-called 

 Fenmila millsi, remarking : — 



" By the kindness of my friend Mr. Scott B. Wilson I am able 

 to show you to-night one of the five known .'pecimens of the bird 

 described by Judge Dole in his ' List of Birds of the Hawaiian 

 Islands,' reprinted from the 'Hawaiian Annual' for 1879 (p. 14), 

 under the name of Pennula millsi^, and lieiieved to be extinct. Mr. 

 Wilson tells me that all these specimens were obtained some thirty 

 years ago by the late Mr. Mills, and that no one has since been able 

 to meet with the species ; but knowing the skulking habits of so 

 many of the smaller Rails and Crakes, as well as the very local dis- 

 tribution of many of the birds of the Sandwich Islands, I think it 

 quite possible that the species may still exist, though undoubtedly 

 it has been frequently sought in vain. As Mr. Sclater has already 

 pointed out (Ibis, 1880, p. 241), this is doubtless the so-called 

 'windless bird' of Mr. Pease (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1862, p. 145); but 

 I must add that in almost every respect it appears to me to agree 

 with the 'Dusky Rail' of Latham (Synopsis, iii. pt. 1, p. 237), 

 upon which was founded the Rallus obsciirus of Gmelin(Syst. Nat. 

 i. p. 718) — a bird not since recognized, so far as I can discover. 

 The identification of the two species, if it can be made, I leave to the 

 discrimination of Mr. Wilson when he comes to work out the fine 

 collections he has made in the Hawaiian Kingdom." 



Prof. Bell stated that he had that morning received a letter from 

 a gentleman at Manchester, in which he was informed Xh&t Bipalium 

 kewense had been observed to eat earthworms. A similar fact had 



' Accidentally misprinted millei. 



