Abstract
AMONG recent acquisitions by the Zoological Department of the British Museum {Natural History) are three Norwegian beavers and a specimen of the rare squid Stenoteuthis caroli, about 6.5 ft. long, stranded at Scarborough. It is interesting to find that the Norwegian beaver is still holding its own. A high percentage of the squids stranded in Great Britain are found on the Yorkshire coast. The Department of Geology has recently been enriched by the presentation, through the trustees of the Vernay-Archbold Expedition, of a large series of fossils collected by Dr. Errol I. White in Madagascar during 1929. The specimens are chiefly those of the sub-fossil fauna which became extinct probably within historic times, for mention of many of the creatures, some of which are remarkable for their great size, occurs in Malagasy folk-tales. Among the interesting specimens are the remains of the extinct Giant Lemur, Megaladapis, which has the largest skull of any known primate, and is peculiar in lacking the front cutting-teeth (incisors) in the upper jaw. A fragment weighing 1084 gin. of the rare pallasite type of meteorite of a new find near Alice Springs, MacDonnell Ranges, Central Australia, and various minerals and rocks collected by the donor have been presented by Dr. Herbert Basedow to the Department of Minerals. A large collection of co-types of Chinese species of Rhododendron have been presented by the Edinburgh Botanic Garden. These were from collections made by the late Mr. George Forrest, news of whose death in Yunnan reached England only a few days ago. Miss M. Brown has presented the British herbarium of her father, Henry Brown (1824-92). The herbarium was got together mainly while Henry Brown was a pupil of Isaac Brown, of Hitchin, who was a well-known naturalist and Lord Lister's first schoolmaster.
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British Museum Acquisitions. Nature 129, 162 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/129162b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/129162b0