148 



Zoological Society. 



from the upper lip, across the cheeks, which in other parts are 

 covered with whitish hairs. The length of the skin is two feet, and 

 the tail measures two feet five inches. 



Of the Colobus Pennantii there were many specimens in the collec- 

 tion, all of which presented the characters pointed out in the descrip- 

 tion in the Proceedings. 



The skin of the Cercopithecus Martini, on the tahle, Mr. Water- 

 house observed, also agreed essentially with specimens formerly ex- 

 hibited, excepting in being of a larger size, the head and body 

 measuring nearly twenty-six inches, and the tail thirty-one inches 

 in length. The tail is of an uniform black colour, excepting near 

 and at the base, where the hairs are obscurely annulated with gray : 

 the hairs on the under parts of the body are of a grayish soot-colour, 

 obscurely annulated with whitish, and the upper surface of the head, 

 as well as the occipital portion, the shoulders, and fore-limbs, are 

 black : on the fore-part of the head the hairs are distinctly annulated 

 with yellowish white. — [See Annals, vol. ii. p. 468.] 



Sept. 28.— William Yarrell, Esq., Vice-President, in the Chair. 



A letter from W. V. Guise, Esq., stated that a young Hoopoe 

 (Upupa Epops, Auct.) was killed on the eighth of September, at 

 Frampton-on-Severn . 



Mr. Lovell Reeve then submitted to the Meeting a Tabula Methodica 

 of the plan he intended to adopt in his forthcoming Conchologia 

 Systematica, for the arrangement of the Lepades and Conchiferous 

 Mollusca. He stated, that in reviewing the history of Conchology, 

 which may be dated from the time of Adanson and Linnaeus, it was 

 evident that few of these remarkable animals were then known ; and 

 although the classification proposed by the latter has been aban- 

 doned, from the fact of its having been based almost entirely upon 

 the outward characters of the shells alone, without reference to the 

 anatomy or habits of their animal inhabitants ; it may be remem- 

 bered as a most laudable attempt on the part of that great father 

 of natural history, to introduce into his theory of nature a scientific 

 arrangement of certain shells then before him, which he knew to be 

 the production of certain once living animals. This fallacious me- 

 thod, therefore, was his alternative ; he must have been well aware 

 that he could no more arrive at the true history of the Mollusca by 

 their shells alone, than at the natural history of Birds by their feathers 

 alone ; but, in the absence of the soft and living parts, he succeeded 

 in establishing an arrangement, by noting such marks and symbols 

 on the shell as could be supposed by analogy to indicate corre- 

 sponding characters and developments in the organization of its 

 animal. Since the time of Linnaeus our intercourse with foreign 

 lands and the general progress of civilization have given increased 

 facilities of obtaining the animals in their native condition ; thus, 

 their anatomy and habits have become the popular subject of inves- 

 tigation, raising the study of Conchology to a level with the rest of 

 the natural sciences. From the commencement of the present cen- 

 tury various naturalists have assisted in reorganizing the arrange- 

 ment and division of the Lepades and Mollusca ; Bruguiere, Lamarck, 



