Proceedings of Learned Societies. 81 



Aye-aye, of Madagascar, which had been kept in confinement by Dr. 

 Sandwith. The Aye-aye is an arboreal animal, abont the size of a 

 cat, with grasping hands and the teeth of a rodent, the forehand 

 has a short opposable thumb, but is most strikingly distinguished by 

 the very long and extremely attenuated character of the middle 

 finger, which has the appearance of being deformed. The use of 

 this remarkable structure was rendered evident when some branches, 

 the wood of which had been perforated by large larvae, were placed 

 in its cage, when the thin finger was employed by the animal as a 

 soiinding instrument, being used in tapping, and as a probe to 

 feel for and extract the grubs, which were immediately devoured 

 with great relish; the peculiar teeth of the animal, which are 

 formed on precisely the same type as those of a gnawing animal, 

 enabling it to gnaw away the bark of the branches and a sufficient 

 quantity of wood to allow it to reach the grubs. The animal feeds 

 also on vegetable food, as dates and other fruits. The specimen, 

 after remaining some time in the possession of Dr. Sandwith, was 

 killed, and carefully preserved in spirit, previous to being remitted 

 to England. The chief portion of Professor Owen's paper was 

 occupied with a description of the details of the osteology of the 

 animal. Its description will form the subject of future papers. 



LINN^EAN SOCIETY.— January 16. 



Discovery of the Welwitschia Mirabilis. — The first meeting 

 of the current year (held at Burlington House) was most auspi- 

 ciously inaugurated by a lengthened verbal communication from Dr. 

 J. D. Hooker, F.R.S., who described to the meeting "the most 

 remarkable plant that ever came to this country." Space will not 

 allow us to follow Dr. Hooker with minute details, but we may re- 

 mark that the new plant, for which the name of Welwitschia mirabilis 

 is proposed, is not only structurally the most peculiar, but it is pro- 

 bably the ugliest plant that has ever been seen. It was discovered 

 by Dr. Welwitsch, A.L.S., beyond the northern limits of Cape 

 Town, Southern Africa, and from the letters of that indefatigable 

 botanist, as well as from the specimens exhibited by Dr. Hooker, 

 we learn that the Welwitschia is a stunted-looking kind of tree, 

 whose summit never reaches more than two feet above the level of 

 the ground, whilst the short woody trunk never possesses more 

 than two leaves. These extraordinary leaves are, in point of 

 fact, the expanded seed-lobes, or cotyledons, which make their 

 appearance as soon as the young plant rises out of the ground ; and, 

 what is still more astonishing, these aforesaid leaves live, grow, and 

 remain attached to the stumpy trunk during the entire life of the 

 tree, which, it is calculated, fives at least one hundred years. We 

 may also further observe that these two persistent foliar organs 

 spread out laterally; in some fine examples of the Welwitschia 

 attaining, each of them, a length of nearly six feet. The flowering 

 axes shoot up from the summit of the stumpy trunk, which is 

 flattened at the top, and like a folded card-table is divided by a 



VOL. I. — wo. I. G 



