6 



to Reversion," and exhibited a series of skins illustrating some 

 experiments on which his communication was based. Crosses 

 had been made between black Barbs and white Fantails. The 

 F. 1 generation was black with some white feathers. In the F. 2 

 generation, among other forms, blacks and whites were obtained, 

 and also some blues. Blues were found to be dominant to whites, 

 but blacks were dominant, or rather " epistatic," to the blues, 

 which accounts for the fact that the reversionary foi-m does not 

 appear until the F. 2 generation. "When two blues of the F. 2 or 

 later generations were mated together blacks were never obtained 

 again. A white in F. 2 mated to a Fantail gave whites only. 



A second series of skins illustrated a cross between a white 

 Tumbler and a white Fantail. Some white birds splashed with 

 red had figured in the ancestry of the Tumbler, although the bird 

 itself showed no trace of colour. In the F. 1 generation such 

 splashed kinds occurred, which, when mated together, gave in 

 F. 2 birds which were red and white with some distinct blue 

 feathers. Possibly the white Tumbler was a dominant white. 



Mr. Oldfield Thomas, F.R.S., F.Z.S., read a paper on 

 mammals collected by Mr. M. P. Andei'son during a trip to the 

 Mongolian Plateau, N.W. of Kalgan. Nine species were men- 

 tioned, of which two were described as new. 



The paper formed the eighth of the series on the results 

 obtained by the Duke of Bedford's Zoological Exploration in 

 Eastern Asia. 



IsTo properly collected material from the Mongolian plateau had 

 been previously available to students, and these specimens, repre- 

 sentatives of its comparatively poor fauna, were therefore of much 

 interest. 



A communication was received from Mr. G. T. Bethune-Baker, 



F.L.S., F.Z.S., in which the author described as new to science a 

 number of species of Butterflies of the division Rhopalocera, 

 from Africa and from New Guinea. 



The next Meeting of the Society for Scientific Business will be 

 held on Tuesday, the 3rd March, 1908, at half- past Eight 

 o'clock P.M., when the following communications will be made : — • 



1. F. E. Beddard, M.A., F.R.S., Prosector to the Society. — 

 A Comparison of the Neotropical Species of Coralhis, C. cookii 

 with C. maclagascariensis; and on some Points in the Anatomy 

 of Coralhhs cauiims. 



