natural history society of glasgow. 85 



February 23d, 1864. 



John Scouler, M.D., LL.D., F.L.S., President, in the chair. 

 The following gentlemen were elected as resident members: — 

 Messrs William Henry Hill, Thomas Warden, James Pearson, and 

 John William Burns, jt. of Ealmahaw. 



SPECIMENS EXHIBITED. 



The President drew the attention of the meeting to an interest- 

 ing addition which had been made to the British fauna by Mr 

 David Robertson, namely, Omiphis Eschrkhtii, and exhibited the 

 animal, -Nvith its ingeniously constructed tube. Mr Robertson had 

 first found it when dredging in the Firth of Clyde in company 

 with Dr Grieve of Glasgow. 



Mr William Sinclair exhibited an eared grebe (Podiceps auritus) 

 and a tree sparrow (Passer montaiia), both from East Lothian. The 

 former is not uncommon at Dunbar, although it is considered 

 one of the rarest species ; the latter far from rare in many parts 

 of the country where it breeds. It was first observed near North 

 Berwick, and appears now to frequent many of the surrounding 

 farms — a record of some interest, as it has not hitherto been 

 recognised as a Scotch species in ornithological works. 



Mr George Brown exhibited a red-necked grebe {Podiceps 

 rubricoUis), shot in the river Cart, near Glasgow; and the Secretary 

 exhibited a specimen of Podiceps minor, Avhich had been found 

 breeding by Mr Sinclair on the summit of Ben Eadden, at an 

 elevation of nearly 2000 feet. 



Mr David Robertson exhibited specimens of a small star-fish, 

 Ophiura affinls (Liitk), (0. Norman of Hodge,) from the col- 

 lection of Mr George Hodge, Seaham Harbour, who first described 

 it as a British species in the transactions of the Tyneside 

 Naturalist's Field Club. Mr Hodge had dredged it at Seaham 

 in 1861, on a sandy bottom from 6 to 26 fathoms water, associated 

 with Ophiura texturata and 0. albida, but a single specimen had been 

 taken some years previous, by the Rev. A. M. Norman, in the Firth 

 of Clyde ; and by that gentlem^an a few sjoecimens were taken at 

 Shetland in the summer of 1861, but having given them only a 

 passing glance, they had been laid aside as the young of 0. 

 texturata or 0. albida, to which they bear a close resemblance. 0. 

 a^inis is readily distinguished from 0. texturata and 0. albida, by a 



