4 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



a pink hue. The anterior antennse are very like those of a mol- 

 lusc — the posterior are as long as the animal, and the basal end 

 projects into the lobe, where it receives the insertion of a levator 

 and depressor muscle, by wliich they are moved. The body 

 shows no signs of segmentation, but there are fourteen or sixteen 

 lateral lobes, and six undeveloped pairs of tubercles on the 

 caudal extremity. Each lobe is divided into two lobules, which 

 pass off more or less obliquely, so that the one is anterior to the 

 other; and by means of these it is propelled backwards or forwards 

 with equal velocity, as it swims with a curious wriggling motion. 



PAPERS READ. 



I. — Report on the Mortality amongst the Clyde Sea-Foivl during the 

 month of September last. By Mr David Eobertson. 



In this paper it was shown that nothing unusual was observed 

 among the birds until a few days after the storms in the early part 

 of the month; and that they were then in a state bordering upon 

 starvation, may be proved from the fact of so many hundreds — 

 even thousands, resorting to estuaries, heedless of danger, and con- 

 trary to their usual shyness. The testimony of the fishermen of 

 various places showed that the common dog-fish was uncommonly 

 abundant, while the small herring-fry, and other fishes constituting 

 the food of sea-birds, had entirely disappeared. Favouring the 

 hypothesis of death by starvation, Mr Robertson observed that no 

 traces of organic disease could be found on examination, and that, 

 moreover, an epidemic does not attack indefinitely, but is confined 

 to one species- — the prominent symptoms of which, viz., disturb- 

 ance of organic functions, loss of appetite, etc., being opposed to 

 what had been observable in the birds — an empty stomach, keen 

 appetite, heedlessness of danger to secure food, tameness, feeble- 

 ness, and death occurring at the extreme point of emaciation; — in 

 other words, the universal symptoms of hunger. The mortality, 

 therefore, not being confined to one species, as is constantly the 

 case in epidemic diseases, and which have been known to occur in 

 other sections of the animal kingdom, the author of the report 

 stated his belief that it was attributaljle to the extreme scarcity of 

 food, causing an emaciation resulting in death. 



The Chairman took the opportunity of saying that Mr Robert- 

 son's ingenious and apparently satisfactory explanation, might be 



