23 



the climbing faculty, the hairy body, and skinning of the dead speci- 

 mens, strongly suggest that they were large anthropoid apes. The fact 

 that such apes, having the closest observed resemblance to the negro, 

 being of human stature and with hairy bodies, do still exist on the 

 west coast of Africa, renders it highly probable that such were the 

 creatures which Hanno saw, captured, and called ' Gorullai. 5 " 



The brief observation made by Battell in west tropical Africa, 

 1590, recorded in Purchas's " Pilgrimages, or Relations of the 

 World," 1748, of the nature and habits of the large human-like 

 ape which he calls "Pongo," more decidedly refers to the Gorilla. 

 Other notices, as by Nieremberg and Bosnian, applied by Buffon to 

 BattelPs Pongo, were deemed valueless by Cuvier, who altogether 

 rejected the conclusions of his great predecessor as to the existence of 

 any such ape. " This name of Pongo or Boggo, given in Africa to 

 the Chimpanzee or to the Mandril, has been applied," writes Cuvier, 

 " by Buffon to a pretended great species of Ourang-utan, which was 

 nothing more than the imaginary product of his combinations." 

 After the publication of Cuvier' s * Regne Animal,' the supposed 

 species was, by the high authority of its author, banished from 

 natural history ; it has only been authentically reintroduced since 

 the intelligent attention of Dr. Savage was directed to the skull 

 which he first saw at the Gaboon in 1847, and took Professor 

 Owen's opinion upon. 



2. Descriptions of Twenty-seven New Species of Land- 

 Shells, from the Collection of H. Cuming, Esq. By 

 Dr. Louis Pfeiffer. 



(Mollusca, PL XLIII.-XLIV.) 



1. Helix patricia, Pfr. (PL XLIV. fig, 4.) T. imperforata' 

 subdepressa, solida, carinata, superne oblique striata et irre" 

 gulariter malleato-impressa, alba ; spira convexa, apice obtusa ; 

 sutura linearis ; anfr. 4^ regulariter accrescentes, convexius- 

 culi, ultimus superne convexior, antice dejlexus, infra carinam 

 prominent em, acutam, antice funif or mem minus convexus, liris 

 spiralibus et plicis radiantibus sculptus ; apertura diagonalis, 

 rotundato-rhombea; perist. album, nitidum, expansum et bre- 

 viter reflexum, marginibus callo albo junctis, columellari in- 

 trante, declivi, dilatato planiusculo. 



Diam. maj. 63, min. 55, alt. 35 mill. 

 Hab. Unknown. 



2. Helix farrisi, Pfr. (PL LXIV. fig. 3.) T. imperforata, 

 ocato-depressa, tenuiuscula, spiraliter striata et foveolis im- 

 pressis reticulata, fulva, fasciis 4 nigricantibus et maculis 

 punctisque luteis variegata ; spira brevis, conoidea, apice ob- 

 tusula ; anfr. vix ultra 4 rapide accrescentes, ultimus ventrosus, 

 antice dejlexus, medio impressus, castaneus ; apertura perob- 



