NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 227 



the propriety of trying some other phm for prolonging the life of 

 tliis fine buxl than the very questionable one now in force. 



May 26th, 1868. 



Hugh Colquhoun, M.D., President, in the chair. The following 

 gentlemen were elected resident members: — Messrs James S. Dixon, 

 Frank Bott, Alexander Murdoch, and Gavin A. Gilchrist. 



SPECIMENS EXHIBITED. 



Mr David Robertson exhibited a large quantity of marine 

 Entomostraca, which he had procured off Millport in somewhat 

 peculiar circumstances, and communicated the following notice of 

 their occurrence in that locality, as observed by himself: — " During 

 the whole of last week, shoals of herrings were noticed on the 

 surface of the water in the Bay of Millport. Being out in the 

 bay, I happened to find myself in the middle of one of these 

 shoals, which appeared to be about twenty or thirty feet in dia- 

 meter. The splashing of fish on the surface caused a commotion 

 in the water like the ]:)oiling of a pot, and at times the shoal 

 spread itself over a circular space, without seeming to move in 

 any particular direction, disappearing after a short time, and 

 rising again at some distance. At other times the entire shoal 

 moved on the same course, sometimes for a short distance in a 

 straight line, then it would curve to one side, or turn round 

 altogether, occasionally varying its movements by breaking up 

 into two companies, and again disappearing. On rowing into 

 the midst of a shoal, I observed the water to be swarming with 

 minute, reddish-coloured bodies, and by drawing a hand-net, 

 which I happened to have at hand, along the surface for a few 

 feet only, was surprised to find it crowded with small entomos- 

 tracans, which, in all my experience, I have never found so pro- 

 fuse in quantity. On using the net, however, at some distance 

 from the shoal of fish, these minute Crustacea, although present, 

 were not in any quantity, showing that the herrings congregated 

 over ihe spot where the entomostraca were most abundant, and 

 that they were following and devouring them as a favourite prey." 

 Mr Robertson also drew attention to the fact of this food of the 

 herring being found in immense abundance on many of the 



