Extracts from the Minute- Book of the Linnean Society. 767 
Dec. 6. 
in many instances enable those conchologists who wish 
to describe and draw the inhabitants of shells, to ac- 
complish that desirable object, and probably, by se- 
curing them in a well-stopped bottle, they might be 
kept alive much longer, and be transported from very 
remote parts of the globe. 
** I remain, &c. 
* Joun Curtis. 
* P.S. I have been informed by Mr. Lyell that 
some shells brought from South America by Lieute- 
nant T. Graves, were seventeen months without food, 
and are now alive and inhabiting their native plants 
in the conservatories of Messrs. Loddiges at Hackney. 
* But shells closed by an operculum have been 
known to remain thus hermetically sealed in cabinets 
for very long periods,—it has been said for forty 
years,—and afterwards been reanimated by mois- 
ture." | 
Some live specimens of the species referred to in 
the letter were exhibited at the Meeting. 
Read a Letter addressed to the Secretary by John 
Blackwall, Esq. F.L.S., correcting his representation, 
in his Notice of several recent Discoveries in the Struc- 
ture and Economy of Spiders, and Remarks on the 
Pulvilli of Insects, respecting the mode by which in- 
sects are supported on the sides of highly polished 
surfaces. | 
. In experimenting upon the House-fly, he observed 
that individuals frequently remained fixed to the sides 
of an exhausted glass receiver after they had entirely 
lost the power of locomotion, and an evident distention 
VOL. XVI. 5 F of 
