206 Address delivered at the sixth and last 



much elucidation on the affinities of the Mammalia. This sub- 

 ject he has deeply studied, and with considerable success. 



Dr. Horsfield and myself have, during the same period, 

 added to the number of our feline animals, by an account of 

 a strongly marked species, the jFelis nepalensis. A figure of 

 this animal has been engraved for the supplementary plates 

 of the Zoological Journal. We have subjoined the details of 

 another animal of the same group in the collection of the 

 Zoological Society, which, however, we conjecture to be one 

 of the numerous alleged varieties of the Pelis rufa Guld. 



Next to the interest conferred by the introduction of new 

 species is that afforded by the more accurate description of 

 those which have been previously, but imperfectly, known. 

 In information of this nature the past year has been unusually 

 fertile. At the head of the publications devoted to this sub- 

 ject, I must place the paper of our friend and colleague, Mr. 

 William S. Macleay, on the Hutias of Cuba, the group cha- 

 racterised by M. Desmarest under the name of Capromys. In 

 this paper four species of the group are accurately character- 

 ised from living specimens, and identified with the descriptions 

 of some of the earlier voyagers, more particularly with those of 

 Oviedo, who published his remarks on the natural history of 

 the New World within five and thirty years after its discovery. 

 In this essay our distinguished friend has exhibited additional 

 proof of that extreme tact, which we ever remarked in him 

 while among us, of selecting all that is valuable, and rejecting 

 all that is irrelevant, in the works of his predecessors. 



I have already referred to the valuable work of Dr. Richard- 

 son, published within this year, on the Mammalia of North 

 America, in which he has exhibited as much to elucidate the 

 remarks of antecedent naturalists as originality on his own 

 part. Among the animals whose history he has cleared up in 

 that work I should particularise a few, were it not difficult to 

 make a selection where all are of interest. I must notice, 

 however, with especial commendation, his remarks on the 

 Sewellel, whose characters and station in nature he had pre- 

 viously pointed out for the first time, with his usual accuracy, 

 in the Zoologicaljournal. 



To our colleague, Mr. Jenyns, we stand indebted for some 

 interesting observations on the common Bat of this country, 

 generally described as the Fespertilio Twurinus of Linnaeus. 

 These observations are followed up by some remarks on the 

 Fespertilionidse in general. It is a subject of congratulation 

 to the friends of science, that this gentleman thus actively con- 

 tinues to communicate the results of his acute and diligent 

 researches into the British Fauna* I have here to add that a 



