being yellowish. This specimen is probably a young bird in winter plumage; it has the upper parts of head nearly black, feathers rather prolonged at sides of hind head; neck and back brownish-black; chin, and across upper part of neck white, a greyish band crosses front of neck; and below it is silvery white, the flanks being dashed with brown. Wing: primaries, dusky, first and second nearly equal, rest gradually diminishing in length; secondaries, pure white; the coverts brown; below, white; length from carpal joint 5 inches. Legs and feet dark green, rather lighter on inside. Macgillivray says he has very seldom met with this bird in Scotland; and Sir William Jardine states he has never personally found it. It is the rarest of the British Grebes.

VII. A Large Specimen of the Wild Cat (Felis catus ferus), recently shot on the property of the Earl of Seaforth, in Inverness-shire, was exhibited by Edward Hargitt, Esq.

VIII. MR ROBERT BROWN exhibited to the Society a beautiful specimen of Astrophyton scutatum * from Davis Strait, with the following Note. Twelve months ago to-day I sailed to the Arctic Regions, for the purpose of studying some points in Natural History to which my attention had of late been directed. During the eight months I was away, I visited various parts of the Polar Regions, the seas round Jan Mayen, Spitzbergen, and the east coast of Greenland, the west coast of Greenland, and crossing the top of Baffin's Sea to Lancaster Sound, that portion of the American coast bordering Davis Strait, &c. &c. From a variety of causes-among others the late severe winter and spring (the latter of which we ourselves experienced, the former we were told of by the Eskimo), and the comparatively still summer, blocking up the shores with ice, which was not dissipated before we were forced to seek a milder climate-my voyage was not so successful, from a scientific point of view, as, under other circumstances, it might have been. I however gained valuable experience, which I hope soon to make use of, and which

*The specimen is now in the Natural History Museum, Edinburgh.

has well repaid me for any little hardships and dangers I may have undergone in gaining it; and I take this opportunity of thanking Captain George Deuchars of the s.s. Narwhal," and his officers, for the ready and intelligent assistance they tendered me whenever it lay in their power. The few observations which I have been enabled to make, I shall have the honour of laying before the Society at a future time. In the meantime I exhibit this specimen of Astrophyton scutatum, Link, Flem., et Forbes (Brit. Echin., p. 67), which I obtained, in September 1861, on the west side of Davis Strait, about a mile off Cape Kater, clinging to a whale line, from 150 to 200 fathoms-rocky and clayey bottom. It was laden with ova of a deep-red colour. I found nothing in its stomach but Diatomaceæ, and a specimen of an Entomostracan, closely allied to, if not identical with, Cetochilus arcticus of Baird, in the "Appendix to Sutherland's Voyage," vol. ii. p. cciii., the presence of which, however, may, with a specimen of a species of Yoldia embraced in its arms, be only accidental. (It may be mentioned as a curious fact, that this Cetochilus forms a great portion of the food of the "commercial" whale (Balana mysticetus), a much disputed point, and of some of the minuter species of Acalephæ.)

Astrophyton scutatum has been occasionally got among the Northern Isles of Scotland (where it bears the rather classical name of Argus) and Norway.*

It has been found, however, very rarely, and at distant periods, in the Arctic seas. Otho Fabricius, in his remarkably accurate Fauna Grænlandica (Hafniæ et Lipsiæ, 1780), speaks of it (p. 372) as follows:-" Asterias caput medusa. Hanc in museo plurimum reverendi Dn. Egede de colonia Jacobshavn (ni fallor) missam, vidi: unde concludo, in sinu Disco dari; non autem vivam ipse offendi."

Whether Fabricius refers here to Hans Egede, the pioneer missionary of Greenland (1721), or to his son, Paul Egede, also a missionary in Greenland, and both of whom published

The secretary of the Zoological Society lately exhibited a specimen at one of their meetings from the southern seas. ("Habitat in omni oceano, imprimis Pelagico."-Linn. Syst., i. 663, Ed. 10.)

works on the country, does not appear, though in none of them can I find any account of this animal. The Chevalier Charles Louis Giesecke, who passed several years in Greenland, engaged in the study of its Natural History, in his article "Greenland," in the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, vol. x. p. 502, notes as follows:-"In Disco-Fiord is found the Asterius caput medusce." He is apparently here, as in many other places, only copying the doubtful record of its occurrence by Fabricius.

seum.

*

There is no notice of it in Hans Egede's work on Greenland (Die Gamle Grænland nye Perlustration, 1729); or in the fuller and better work by David Crantz, one of the Moravian Unitas Fratrum (Historie von Gronland, 1765; English trans. 2 vols. 1820), both of whom studied very closely the Arctic Fauna with the best lights of the age. My attention has however been called to a note by Mr Gwyn Jeffreys, in the "Annals of Natural History," vol. vii. p. 253, where he refers to Sir John Ross having got a single specimen far north, which was described by Dr Leach, under the synonym of Gorgonocephalus arcticus, and is now in the British MuIt was obtained from 1600 fathoms soundings in soft mud, and measured, when expanded, two feet." My specimen is much larger and finer than any I have ever seen got in the British seas. It thus appears that, with the exception of the doubtful indication of its occurrence in Disco Fjord, by Fabricius (circiter 1760), and that by Sir John Ross in 1819, this specimen found last year is only the third got in the wide Arctic sea, north and west of Greenland. None of the Government exploring expeditions have brought it home, though it is quite possible that some of the many naturalists who have studied the Arctic fauna since the days of Fabricius-Eschricht, Stäeger, Kroyer, Möller, Hoeg, Olrik, Rink, Reinhardt, Otto Torrell, &c.—may have met in with it, though I am not aware that it is on record. Disco-Fjord, a

* Martens, the surgeon of a Hamburg whaler, in 1671, appears to have met with it in his "Voyage to Spitzbergen, t. P. f. E.," though Phipps (Lord Mulgrave), in his Fauna of that sea, does not mention it: "Voyage to the North Pole;" apud Scoresby, "Arctic Regions;" though it was afterwards got in Davy's Sound on the east coast of Greenland.-(Scoresby's Voyage to Greenland, &c.; Zoological Appendix.)

narrow inlet of the Island of Disco (lat. 68° 58′ 42′′ N., long. 53° 13′ W.), appears to be a very likely place for it. It is almost opposite Cape Kater where I got it, and where it appears to be pretty abundant; for broken pieces occasionally came up on the whale-lines afterwards.

A curious idea seems to have prevailed in Bishop Erick Pontopiddan's day regarding this animal. After mentioning in his excellent "Natural History of Norway," part ii. pp. 179-80 (Lond. 1755, English trans.), that it is rarely got on the Norwegian coast, and is called Söe-Navle by the Norwegians, and Söe-Soel or Sea Sun by the Dutch sailors, who frequently find it in the West Indies, according to Geo. Marcgrave's account, in his "Historia Naturalis Braziliæ," lib. iv. cap. xxii., he states, in all good faith, the following extraordinary notion, though, with a lack of credulity he has hardly been given credit for, repudiating it :—" This strange and wonderful fish or korstrold is said to be only the young, or perhaps only the germ, of the roe of that great and frightful monster, which is here called Kraake [Kraken Anglice]. But as far as I could get information from several fishermen, who all agree in their accounts, this cannot possibly be true."

Though a rare animal, this "Korstrold," from its bizarre. form, seems to have attracted the attention of all the " engenuous" naturalists of an early date, as well as more modern, and to have received (after a fashion not peculiar to our time) a variety of names,-viz., Sternfisch, J. C. Adelung, Geschicte, &c., p. 381, tab. xvii. fig. (1768); "Stella marina I. Ionstoni, Insect., tab. xxiv. fig. 11" (fide Fab.); Stella arborescens (Rondoletius and Gesner); Asterias caput medusa (Linnæus, Müller, &c.); Asterias arborescens (Pennant); Euryale verucossum (Lamarck); Euryale scutatum (Blainville), &c.

Most of the early authors give distinguishable figures of it. That of Pontopiddan is the best. Among modern, that of Professor E. Forbes is the only good portrait of it, but, from its want of colouring, his figure does not do full justice. to the varied hues of the starfish. The coloured figures in Griffith's beautiful edition of Cuvier's Regne Animal, as also in the "Crochard Edition" of same work, are mere pictures.

Wednesday, 26th March 1862.- ALEXANDER BRYSON, Esq., President, in the Chair.

The following Donations to the Library were laid on the table:

1. Canadian Journal, New Series, No. 36, November 1861.— From Canadian Institute. 2. First Report of a Geological Reconnoissance of the Northern Counties of Arkansas, made during the years 1857 and 1858.- From Geological Surveyor of Arkansas. 3. Fourth Report of Progress of the Geological Survey of Missouri.-By G. C. Swallow. 1859.

The following Communications were read :

1. Notice of Indian Insects exhibited at last meeting by Mr Elliot of Wolfelee. By R. F. LOGAN, Esq.

Although not present at the last meeting of the Society, when Mr Elliot's beautiful drawings of Indian animals by native artists were exhibited, I have since had the pleasure of inspecting them, through the kindness of Dr Coldstream; and with reference more especially to the entomological portion of the collection, I wish to bear testimony not only to the intrinsic beauty and fidelity of the drawings, but also to their high scientific value, as comprising the transformations of many insects whose history has been hitherto unknown to science. Besides figures of the larvæ and pupa of many of the Papilionida, Pieridæ, Nymphalidæ, &c., some of which have been already figured and described, the collection includes some most interesting details of the transformations of the Heterocera. Among the Noctuæ, those of the genera Hypocala, Hyblæa, Ophideres, Achaea, Lagoptera, and Serrodes, are especially worthy of mention. The larvæ of Hypocala have no apparent affinity with those of the Catocalidæ, immediately before which they stand in Guenee's arrangement. Those of Ophideres, of which Guenee remarks, "Je desirerais vivement connaitre les chemilles de ce genre singulier," are quite as remarkable as the perfect insects. They are elongate and cylindrical, like those of the Ophiusida, and the anterior pair of ventral claspers is imperfect; but instead of being attenuated posteriorly and anteriorly with a pair of small tubercles on the eleventh segment, the latter forms a large conical protuberance, as in