290 [October, 



1. Catesthia stellato-maculataj Leidy. 



Body oblong, cylindroidal ; anteriorly and posteriorly obtusely rounded ; 

 superiorly maculated closely and regularly with very much branching, stellate, 

 black pigment cells, which cease abruptly laterally, and anteriorly form 3 lobes, 

 in the translucent whitish interspaces of which, deeply seated, are the eyes, 

 which are black and globular ; inferiorly translucent whitish. Mouth round, 

 very large and dilatable; cesophagus amphoraform, very large. 



Length 3 to 8 lines, breadth l-4th to 1 line ; thickness l-5th to 4-5th line. 



Hahitation. Upon the under side of stones, in the Delaware and Schuylkill 

 Rivers, below tide water mark. 



Remarks. Closely allied to Vertex, Hemp, and Ehrenh., but has not 4 eyes, 

 and has a differently arranged generative apparatus. 



It is exceedingly voracious; I have seen an individual, of 8 lines in length, 

 swallow whole a Planaria maculata 6 lines in length. 



- Mr. Lea announced the death of Richard Cowling Taylor, which 

 took place on Sunday morning, the 2Gth inst., at his residence in 13th 

 street, in his 62d year, after a very short ilhiess. 



Mr. Lea remarked, that it was very rarely that the members of the Academy 

 had to deplore so severe a loss, as that sustained by the death of their distin- 

 guished fellow member Mr. Taylor. 



In his particular branch of Geology (economic-geology) he stood pre-eminent, 

 and as a mining engineer, no authority in this country, or, perhaps, in Europe, 

 was superior to that of Mr. Taylor. By early education and association in Eng- 

 land, he became versed, in the most thorough manner, in these important sciences 

 at an age when such education usually begins. Hence, his first literary produc- 

 tions brought him prominently before the learned world, and he was introduced 

 into literary and scientific societies, where he took an active part. The first 

 work of importance which he published, was one on the Monastic remains of the 

 county in which his father lived as a country gentleman, and on whose property 

 there was a noted Anglo-Norman ruin. It was this probably that induced Mr. 

 Taylor first to turn his attention to this branch of knowledge, and the result was 

 the " Index Monasticus, in the ancient kingdom of East Anglia," published in 1821, 

 in 1 vol. folio,* which at once gave him a reputation for thorough investigation 

 and exactness, which noted all his after works, and which has rarely been excel- 

 led. This work was received with so much favor, that Mr. Taylor was induced, 

 at the request of the publishers, to undertake that thorough and learned work 

 which he called a " General Index to Dougdale's Monasticon Anglicanum," in 

 1 vol. folio, with plates and maps, which was published in 1830. This took Mr. 

 Taylor two years to complete, and was said to be so perfect as to require nothing 

 further to be added in regard to it. In his profession, he had the great advantage 

 of a most thorough and complete education, and he was associated in business with 

 the late Wm. Smith, who has been considered as " the father of British Geology,'> 

 on account of his having been the first geologist in England who attempted to 

 classify the rocks^of that country, by their characteristic fossils ; and who was said 



At a public sale his private copy, with some notes, brought 30. 



