Abstract
LONDON. Zoological Society, April 2.—Dr. Albert Gunther, F.R.S., vice-president, in the chair.—Mr. G. P. Mudge read a paper on the myology of the tongue of parrots, and added a tentative classification of this order of birds placed upon the structure of the tongue. This memoir was the outcome of an examination of the congues of fifty-three parrots ranging over the whole order, the Cyclopsittacidæ excepted; and the conclusion arrived at by the author was that the parrots, by the structural characters of the tongue alone, might be arranged in three families, viz. Loriidæ, Nestoridæ and Psittacidæ.—A communication was read from Prof. W. Blaxland Benham on the larynx of a rorqual whale (Balaenoptera rostrata) and of a cachalot of the genus Cogia. The paper was based upon an examination of the larynxes of specimens of these cetaceans, which had been washed up on the coast of Dunedin, New Zealand, and in it the author showed how widely different this organ was in these representatives of the Mystacoceti and the Odontoceti.—A communication from Mr. F. F. Laidlaw contained an account of the lizards collected during the “Skeat Expedition” to the Malay Peninsula in 1899–1900. Twenty-seven species were enumerated in the paper, and notes were given on their geographical distribution and habits, special attention being directed to the curious habit of Tachydromus sexlineatus of running about on the top of the long buffalo-grass. One new species was described, under the name Lygosoma floweri.—Prof. D Arcy W. Thompson, C.B., read a paper on the pterylosis of the giant humming-bird, Patagona gigas.
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Societies and Academies . Nature 63, 603–604 (1901). https://doi.org/10.1038/063603a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/063603a0