ing every movement. Not a moment was to be lost, and the three, ranged in line, left their hiding-place and advanced rapidly on the nest. If the female still remains, her chance of escape is a poor one, for she is now within range of six barrels! She sits so close, however, that doubts are beginning to arise, when up she springs and dashes rapidly off, brushing the heather in her flight. She has not flown far when a single shot is fired, and poor falco drops among the heath with a broken wing. The male escaped on this occasion and was not seen again, although diligent search was made for some days afterwards. The nest contained four eggs, and was situated where one would rather expect to find the nest of the red grouse.

Dr J. A. Smith said, naturalists were indebted to Mr Shearer and Mr Osborne for their valuable list, with its accompanying details, of the birds of Caithness. He had requested Mr Osborne to add some notes on the nesting of the birds, and was sure the Society would agree with him. in the great interest of these communications; he only wished a similar careful list of the appearance and nesting of the birds, could be got from all the counties of Scotland. The capture of the ivory gull, referred to by Mr Shearer as new (page 341), had been brought under the notice of the Society by Sir W. Jardine (see Proc., vol. i. p. 4; and vol. ii. p. 57). The specimen was described by him as being the Pagophila brachytarsus (Halböll), and the first time it had been observed as occurring in this country.

IV. Ornithological Notes.-Larus glaucus (Glaucous gull), Mergulus alle, (Little Auk), &c. (specimens exhibited). By J. A. SMITH, M.D. A fine specimen of the Larus glaucus, the great whitewinged or glaucous gull, was sent for exhibition by Mr Edward Hargitt. It is a bird of this year, and was shot on Holy Island, near Berwick, in the third week of November. Dr Smith also exhibited a specimen of the Little Auk, recently shot in the Firth of Forth. This bird is an occasional winter visitor, generally after severe storms. It occurs abundantly in the Arctic regions; and he might mention in regard to it, that the late Professor Jameson used to exhibit

a specimen, presented to the Museum of Natural History in Captain, afterwards Sir Edward Parry, which was captured by him in the year 1827, as far to the north as Lat. 82° N.

V. Dr Smith exhibited plaster casts of the skull of the famous Gorilla, and also of its brain cavity. Mr Alexander Stewart, No. 1 Surgeon Square, had been most successful in making these casts; and from him specimens could be obtained.

Wednesday, 26th February.-JOHN COLDSTREAM, M.D., President, in the Chair.

Norman Bethune, M.D.; H. W. Mitnish, Esq., M.R.CS.L; and William M'Nab, Esq., Royal Botanic Gardens, were elected members of the Society :

The Secretary stated he had received from the Right Honourable Sir George Grey an official intimation of the Society's Address of Condolence having been duly presented to her Majesty.

The following Donations to the Library were laid on the table, and thanks voted to the donors:

1. (1). Meteorological Observations made at Providence, R.I. By Alexis Caswell. October 1860.-(2.) Meteorological Observations made near Washington, Arkansas. By Nathan D. Smith, M.D. October 1860. -(3.) Researches upon the Venom of the Rattlesnake. By S. Weir Mitchell, M.D., Washington. January 1861. From the Smithsonian Institution, U S.A.-2. Second Report of a Geological Reconnoissance of the Southern and Middle Counties of Arkansas, made during the years 1859 and 1860. By David Dale Owen. Philadelphia, 1860. Presented through the Smithsonian Institution.-3. Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History. Vol. VII. 16-28, and Vol. VIII. 1-4. From the Society.-4. On the Sounds caused by the Circulation of the Blood. By Arthur Leared, B.A., M.D., Dub. London, 1861. From the Author.

The following Communications were read :-

I. Exhibition of Drawings, by Native Artists, of Animals collected in India, belonging to the different Great Divisions of the Animal Kingdom. By WALTER ELLIOT of Wolfelee, Esq. Communicated by JOHN COLDSTREAM, M.D.

After some introductory remarks on the occasion of his occupancy of the chair for the first time since his re-election as one of the Presidents of the Society, Dr Coldstream adverted to the great loss which the Society had recently sustained in the death of Mr John S. Livingston, one of the

office-bearers, a young naturalist whose talents and extensive acquirements had given promise of much usefulness. Dr Coldstream said, that long and intimate acquaintanceship with the deceased enabled him to bear testimony to the thoroughness of his habits as a student; to his carefulness in research; to his probity and moral worth. Of his capacity for acute generalisation, the Society had been favoured with a striking proof in the able paper "On the State of our Knowledge respecting Metamorphism in the Mineral Kingdom," which he read in March last. This, along with a memoir on the effects of anesthetics on plants, made Mr Livingston's talents widely known, and led him into extensive correspondence with men of science. His modesty and courtesy of manner were as remarkable as his acquirements, and endeared him to a large circle of attached friends. Dr Coldstream then submitted for the inspection of the members a large collection of drawings in water colours, of various Indian animals, chiefly insects, which had been made at the instance of Walter Elliot, Esq., lately a member of the Supreme Council of Madras. These remarkably beautiful drawings were executed by native artists, under the eye of Mr Elliot. The accuracy and elegance of the drawings were much admired, and a hope was expressed that many other residents in India would avail themselves, as Mr Elliot had so successfully done, of the talents of the natives, to extend our knowledge of the beautiful productions of our eastern empire.

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II. Observations on British Zoophytes. 1. Atractylis arenosa. Atractylis miniata. 3. Laomedia decipiens. By T. STRETHILL WRIGHT, M.D. (Plate XV.)

1. Atractylis arenosa.

This zoophyte was described by Mr Alder at the last meeting of the Society. In September last I found a large female specimen at Largo, and was fortunate enough to have an opportunity of studying its anatomy and reproduction. The polyp-stems are, as Mr Alder has shown, funnel-shaped and expanding at the top. From them the milk-white polyps issue, each furnished with an alternating row of long tentacles. The scleroderm, or corallum, is

covered by a thick layer of colletoderm, which is continued over the body of the polyp, and which, when the polyp retires within its tube, fills up the top of the tube by its cushiony folds, so that the polyp is completely hidden, and the funnel appears as it were closed by a valve. The colletoderm in my specimen was coated and impregnated with mud. Mr Alder's specimen was covered with grains of fine sand. I was at first inclined to believe that this zoophyte was merely a variety of Atractylis repens, which, with its medusoids, I have already described to the Society; but after it had been in captivity a few days, I found that it was beginning to put forth ovisacs, one on opposite sides of the polyp-stems (Plate XV. fig. 7).

The mode of reproduction in this zoophyte is unique amongst the Tubulariadæ, though I have noticed and described it in the Sertularias and Campanularias.

The female generative sac of Atractylis arenosa resembles that of Hydractinia; it is a simple sac formed of ectoderm, or the outer layer of the cœnosarc, enclosing a similar sac of endoderm, the "placenta,” the whole being covered by a layer of scleroderm and colletoderm. Between the placenta and the ectoderm a large number of ova are developed, each showing a germinal vesicle and spot (fig. 8). When the ova are sufficiently advanced for extrusion from the generative cavity, the investments of the sac are ruptured, the sac assumes a long, cylindrical form (fig. 9), and a most laborious process of parturition commences. With each pain the ectoderm of the sac contracts laterally, like the bell of a Medusa, and at the same time the placenta (fig. 9 c) is dilated by fluid pumped into it from the somatic cavity of the zoophyte, so that the ova, which are floating in a milky fluid, are forced against the summit of the generative sac. Meanwhile, another process has been going on,—the external surface of the summit of the sac has been secreting a thick cap of gelatinous colletoderm (fig. 9 d), which is to form a nidus for the further development of the ova. The contractions become still more violent, until the ova are confined in a mass at the dilated upper part of the sac; this last is ruptured, and they are forced into the gelatinous cap,

which still remains attached to the summit of the empty generative sac (fig. 10 d). The ova now undergo fissure, and are developed into planula within their nest, then at last escape, and, after swimming in the water, doubtless become fixed and converted into polyps.

Atractylis arenosa, although it gives off an immense number of young, is one of the rarest zoophytes on our coast, probably on account of the low viability of its planulæ. While Sertularia pumila, one of the commonest species, and which produces its young in the same way, will quickly line the vessel in which it is kept with forests of young zoophytes, not a single planula of Atractylis arenosa, of the immense number that were given off by my specimen, ever attained the polyp stage.

We have in this zoophyte the reappearance amongst the Tubulariadæ of a mode of gelatinous nidification, which obtains in various orders of the animal kingdom,—in the Protozoa, the Mollusca, the Annelidæ, the Insecta, and even amongst the Vertebrata, as in the common frog. We may ask, How is it that the ova of Hydractinia and Coryne are discharged into the water to float about without any protection, while those of Atractylis arenosa, the Sertularias and Laomedias, require such various provisions for their protection? but we do not find anything in the physiology of the zoophyte to answer the question.

2. Atractylis miniata. (New Species.)

Polypary yellow dendritic, branches given off at an acute angle from the stem, crooked, wrinkled but not ringed. Polyp with eight alternate tentacles, buccal cavity silvery, endodermal lining of stomach bright red-lead coloured. Reproduction not observed.

This zoophyte was found on stones at Largo, in little gnarled shrubby trees about an inch high, exposed at the lowest tides. The bright yellow colour of the polypary at once strikes the eye, which is also arrested by the gaudy colour of the minute polyps. These appear to be marked by two broad internal patches: one, corresponding to the buccal cavity, of a dense silvery white; the other

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