742 NESTLIX6 BIIIDS FJIOM THE SOCIETY'S GARDENS. 



November 7th, 1916. 



Dr. S. F. Harmee, M.A., F.R.S., Vice- President, 



in the Chair. 



Nestling Birds from the Society'' s Gardens. 



Mr. ]3. Seth-iSmith, F.Z.S., Curator of Birds, exhibited a series 

 of skins of nestling birds of over seventy species. He called 

 attention to the striped colour-pattern which was found in such 

 veiy distinct species as Rheas, Sheldrakes, and Pheasants, and 

 remarked that this pattern was evidently of very great antiquity, 

 and inherited from some common ancestor. Where it had proved 

 effective for the preservation of the species by its protective 

 resemblance to surroundings it had been retained, but in other 

 cases it had been modiiied or had even disappeared altogether. 

 In the case of most of the ducks, the stripes had been broken up 

 into spots, but showing more or less the same pattern as in the 

 striped type of markings. In the Gulls, Waders, and others the 

 stripes had been further broken up into spots, and in the Swans, 

 Geese, and Rails all markings had disappeared. 



Mr. Seth-Smith called attention to the young of the Coscoroba 

 Swan {Coscoroba coscoroba), and remarked that this was the only 

 swa.n, if, indeed, it was a swan, which showed a distinct colour- 

 pattern in the nestling down. 



Scent-Glands in Mammals. 



(Text-figures 1-12.) 



Mr. R. I. PococK, F.R.S., F.L.S., F.Z.S., Curator of Mammals, 



exhibited a series of lantern -slides to illustrate the position and 



structure of some new and little-known ciitaneous scent -glands 



in various mammals, and made the following remarks : — 



The Inguinal Glands q/Orycteropus. 



My search for special scent-glands in Orycteroims was insti- 

 gated by the strong smell given ofi' by the living animal, and was 

 rewarded by the discovery, first in a female and then in a male, 

 of a pair of large glands upon the genital eminence. In the 

 female they lie one on each side of the vulva, and in the male 

 just behind the prepuce and the short conical glans penis. 



The orifice of each gland is an elongated slit, which, when 

 constricted and closed, may easily be ovei-looked. It leads into 

 a short wide sac filled with yellow secx^etion, smelling like that 

 of the anal glands of a Polecat (J/, putorius). The layer of 

 glandular cells is thick and envelops the lower portion of 

 the wall of the sac, which is provided with a strong constrictor 

 muscle. In the male these two glands, imbedded in the integu- 

 ment jiist behind the penis and with their orifices tolerably 

 close together, cause a swelling which superficially resembles a 

 scrotum. In the female there is a somewhat similar swelling 

 with the vulva in the centre and the glands, which are widely 

 separated, on each side of it. 



Since these glands, so far as can be judged from the mateiial 

 examined, are equally well developed in the two sexes, they 



