XATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 233 



foliacea growing on it. The fine scent of this species has been 

 noticed before. Dr. Johnston (Zoophytes, i. 343) says — " When 

 recent it exhales a pleasant scent, which Pallas compares to that of 

 the orange, Dr. Grant to that of violets, and which a friend tells me 

 smells to him like a mixture of the odour of roses and geranium. 

 On the contrary, Mr. Patterson tells me that the smell is strong, 

 peculiar, and disagreeable. It probably varies, and is often not to 

 be perceived at all." Dr. Landsborough (Zoophytes, p. 346) says, 

 " It is like bergamot, or rather like Verbena triphylla." Our living- 

 specimen reminded us of the Verbena, and had a strong scent of 

 lemon • when chewed it was somewhat pungent, and rather 

 pleasant, with a strong taste of lemon.* A few days later, 

 in Kilbrannan Sound, the dredge brought up a specimen of Flustra 

 truncata. This species has not been credited with fragrance, but it 

 is not devoid of taste, for on being chewed it was found to be 

 intensely bitter and to have a persistent bitter taste like that of 

 quinine. The difference between the two species in this respect is 

 somewhat remarkable. 



After Dr. Grieve's paper, Mr. David Ilobertson, F.L.S., F.G.S., 

 said — We are much indebted to Dr. Grieve for his excellent paper. 

 He has told us what he himself saw, and under what conditions, and 

 how these molluscs behaved both in freedom and in confinement. 

 This, in a great measure, is the object that our Natural History 

 Societies should aim at — to search for and to supply new facts, or 

 to clear up obscurely known ones. In this pursuit, over the broad 

 field of nature, there is ample scope for all our energies. There 

 are so many aspects in both living and dead matter, that we need 

 not sigh the sigh of Alexander the Great, that there are no more 

 worlds to conquer. Each fact, however small, may be a component 

 part of a whole, which without it may be difficult or impossible 

 to comprehend. Regarding this little mollusc, Spirialis retroversus, 

 Dr. Jeffreys tells us that it is known to be of wide distribution 

 everywhere along our coasts in drifted and dredged sand. Among 

 other places, it has been met with in the North Atlantic from 

 170 to 500 fathoms, on the Scandinavian coasts, in the Mid 

 Atlantic, in the Gulf of Naples, and Dr. Brady and I dredged it 

 off Sunderland in 30 fathoms. It has been met with in the post- 



Flmtra foliacea cast ashore at Bournemouth, December, 1879. Ave found 

 to have the same scent and taste of lemon, 



