1909.] OI^ COLOUR-CHANGE IN AN AFRICAN RATEL. 889 



removed ; it held the nut under its bod}^ with some of its walking 

 legs while it walked oft" raised high on the tips of the others. 



These animals are easily frightened and scuttle oft" backwards, 

 propelling themselves with their long anterior legs in a series of 

 ungainly jerks. They seem quite conscious of the comparative 

 defencelessness of the abdomen, which they endeavour to thrust 

 under logs or into holes among the roots of trees. They never 

 carry any protective covering on the abdominal region, although in 

 the Cambridge Natural History (vol. iv. p. 1 74), it is stated that they 

 may sometimes employ an empty coconut shell for this purpose. 

 No authority is given for this statement, nor does there appear to 

 be any reference to it in previously published accounts, and from 

 what I have seen I should think that thethingisan imj)ossibility. 

 A species of Ccenobita, a closely allied genus, has been desciibed 

 as using a coconut shell for this purpose, and a figure of it carrying 

 one is given in Prof. J. S. Gardiner's ' Fauna and Geography of 

 the Maldive and Laccadive Ai-chipelagoes,' vol. i. p. 69 ; probably 

 this has been confused with Birgus. 



The photograph now reproduced (PI. LXXXIII.) has been 

 exhibited in the Natural History Museum (South Kensington) 

 for some time, but as there still seems to be some doubt as to the 

 climbing habits of these crabs, it has been thought desirable to 

 publish it. 



Dr. R. T. Leiper, F.Z.S., exhibited the original specimens of 

 the Nematode Worm Acanthocheiloneina dracunculoides Cobb., 

 from the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. The 

 characters of the genus, of which this is the type, he stated to 

 have been inaccurately interpreted, the postei^ior end of the 

 worm having been described as the head and the cuticular caudal 

 appendages regarded as " lips." The remarkable specific charac- 

 ters — viz., the entire absence of male forms and the lack in the 

 female of vaginal opening — had also to be repudiated, for both 

 are to be seen in the original material. The genus, as revised, 

 would admit a second species, the Filaria per stems of Man. 



The following papers wei-e read : — 



1. On Change of Colour in a Specimen o£ MelUvora rat el 

 living in the Society's Gardens. By Dr. F. D. Welch, 

 F.Z.S. 



[Eeceived October 14, 1909.] 



There is living in the Society's Gardens at Regent's Park a 

 male Ptatel which has been mentioned by Mr. Pocock in the 

 Proceedings of the Zoological Society, 1909, p. 397, when referring 



