24 



the day before, and Mr. Hix had noted a Red-breasted Nut- 

 hatch (Sitta canadensis) and a Hermit Thrush {Hylocichla 

 guttata pallasi) in Central Park. 



Mr. Herbert Lang gave the Society a lecture, illustrated with 

 lantern-slides and specimens, on "The Okapi and its Life- 

 History." The speaker's six years in the Belgian Congo, the 

 northern part of which is the Okapi's entire range, had given 

 him a knowledge of the species probably fuller than that 

 possessed by any other white man, so that besides giving a 

 history of it as a known species and discussing its systematic 

 position, he was able to tell many of the facts of its life-history. 

 The Okapi (Okapia johnstoni), he said, was not an inhabitant 

 of almost impenetrable swampy jungle, as was generally 

 believed, but lived in high, rather open forest, only visiting 

 briefly or passing through the lower country. It seems to 

 feed entirely on the leaves of shrubbery, of which Mr. Lang 

 found fourteen species that it had been eating. It is found 

 usually singly, never in herds. Mr. Lang has never seen a 

 living Okapi in nature and, in spite of stories to the contrary, 

 some of which he knows to be false, believes that no white 

 man has ; there is always a carpet of dead leaves in its favorite 

 haunts and the animal's very large ears have exceedingly keen 

 hearing. All that are procured are trapped by the natives, 

 who get several hundred a year, but Mr. Lang considers the 

 species to be holding its own. He saw in all thirty-two speci- 

 mens, and the expedition brought to the American Museum a 

 very representative series. 



April 11, 1916. — The President in the chair. Twelve 

 members (Dr. Dwight and Messrs. Chapin, Davis, Granger, 

 Griscom, Hix, Hollister, Marks, Murphy, J. T. Nichols, 

 Rogers and Weber) and three visitors present. 



At the request of Mr. Murphy, the regular order of business 

 was waived that he might present at once his paper* on " New 

 Facts as to the Relationships of the South Georgia Teal." The 

 speaker's conclusions were that the species, the southernmost 

 duck in the world, was a true Nettion {N. georgicum) and that 

 its near relative generally known as Dafila spinicauda, of South 



* See "Anatidse of South Georgia," Auk, XXXIII, 270-277. 



