Prof. E. Ray Lankester, F.K.S., Director' of the British ]\Iii- 

 seum (Natural History), read a paper entitled " The Origin of the 

 Lateral Horns of the Giraffe in Foetal Life on the Area of the 

 Parietal Bones." The author described and showed the exact 

 relation of the lateral horns in the fcetiis taken from the Giraflfe 

 which died last spring in the Society's Gardens. It was demon- 

 strated that the latei'al horn of the Giraffe was exclusively in 

 origin a part of the fibrous osteogenetic tissue of the parietal bone 

 of which it was a part, and had no connection whatever with the 

 fi'ontal. 



Thus the statement made by Sii- Richard Owen in his account 

 of a new-born Giraffe, in a paper read before the Society in 1839, 

 was finally shown to be based on an rinfortunate accident. Owen 

 had cut out the horn- bearing area of the skull and after an intei'val 

 of time had reversed the relations of the excised piece of bone, 

 taking fi'ontal for parietal and parietal for frontal. 



The author expressed the opinion that the parietal lateral horn 

 of the Gii'afle could not be considered to be the same morphological 

 unit as the frontal latei-al hoiii of the Okapi. 



Prof. Laxkester also read a paper on " Parallel Hair-fringes 

 and Colour- striping on the Face of Fo?tal and Adult Girafii'es," in 

 which he described, illustrated by lantern-slides, a remarkable 

 colour-banding or striping of the haiiy covering of the face in the 

 foetal Giraffe, and showed that similar dark and light striping 

 occurred in a very marked form in adult Giraffes though not in 

 all individuals. 



In a third paper, " On the Existence of Rudimentary Antlers in 

 the Okapi," Prof. Laxkester described the polished tip or apex of 

 the Okapi's horn which breaks through the integument. He 

 showed that transverse fissures oi- incisions were produced one 

 behind the other in the naked apex, tending to cut off in succession 

 a series of small bony caps which he regarded as rudimentary 

 antlers. He expressly refrained fi'om concluding that this forma- 

 tion of minute antler-caps was to be regarded as genetically 

 connected with the antler-formation of the Cervidse, though such 

 a connection was possible. 



Prof. Laxkester also exhibited the skull of a sub-adult male 

 Okapi obtained by Major Powell-Cotton in the Ituri Forest 

 (Congo), and a similar somewhat younger male skull, obtained by 

 Capt. Boyd Alexander in the Bahr-el-Ghazal region. Both skulls 

 Avere in a very fine state of preservation. 



Mr. G. A. Boulenger, F.R.S., on behalf of Dr. E. A. Goeldi, 

 C.M.Z.S., exhibited and described a new Amazonian Tree-Frog, 

 Hyla resinifictrix, closely related to H. venulosa, but distinguished 

 by fully half-webbed fingers. This frog was remarkable for its 

 habit of making good-sized basins of resinous substances in hollow 

 branches of high trees, in which water collects, which served as a 



