No. 89. 



ABSTRACT OF THE PROCEEDINGS 



OP THE 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.^ 



December 13th, 1910. 



G. A. BouLENGER, Esq., F.R.S., Vice-President, 

 in the Chair. 



The Minutes of the last Scientific Meeting were confirmed. 



The Secretary read a Report on the additions that had been 

 made to the Society's Menagerie during the month of November 

 1910. 



Dr. H. Hammond Smith, F.Z.S., exhibited a mounted specimen 

 of a male Red Grouse, from Abington, Lanarkshire, which dis- 

 played a curious variety of the ordinary plumage of this species. 



Mr. D. Seth-Smtth, F.Z.S., Curator of Birds, exhibited some 

 skins of the Australian Yellow-rumped Finch [Munia Jlavi- 

 prymnci). These birds had been kept alive in an outdoor aviary 

 in England, and had developed certain markings tending towai'ds 

 those of another closely allied species, Munia castaneithorax. 

 The exhibitor attributed this to the fact that the former species 

 was a desert form of the latter, and when placed in a humid 

 environment tended to revert to the plumage of the latter. He 

 referred to a paper he had published on this subject in the 

 ' Avicultural Magazine,' 1907, p. 195. 



Mr. Edwin S. Goodrich, M.A., F.R.S., F.Z.S., read a paper 

 " On the Segmentation of the Occipital Region of the Head in 

 the Batrachia Urodela," based on his studies of the development 



* This Abstract is published by the Society at its offices, Zoological Grardens, 

 Eegent's Park, N.W., on the Tuesday following the date of Meeting to which 

 it refers. It will be issued, along with the ' Proceedings,' free of extra charge, 

 to all Fellows who subscribe to the Publications; but it maybe obtained on the 

 day of publication at the price of Sixpence, or, if desired, sent post-free for 

 the sum of Six Shillings per annum, payable in advance. 



