NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 237 



feeding-grounds for that delicious fish exist at the mouth of one river flowing 

 into the Gulf of Mexico, may they not exist at the mouths of other or all the 

 rivers discharging into that sea ? Time must answer that question. 



When the presence of the White Shad in the Alabama River became known, 

 some enterprising citizens of Montgomery came to Savannah and procured a 

 number of the young shad from the river, placed them in a hogshead of water, 

 which was kept cool by occasional supplies of ice, and took them by railroad 

 to Montgomery and placed them in the Alabama River. The purpose of this 

 measure was to multiply more rapidly the shad already established in that 

 river. My agency in placing the White Shad there was not then, I believe, 

 known to those gentlemen, one of whom was Colonel Pickett, the Historian of 

 Alabama. 



(Savannah, April 19, 1866.) 



June bth. 

 Mr. Cassin, Vice-President, in the Chair. 

 Twenty-two members present. 



The following paper was offered for publication : " Description of new 

 species of Diurnal Lopidoptera." By Tryon Reakirt. 



Dr. Leidy observed that the small collection of fossils presented this evening 

 by Dr. A. C. Hamlin is of interest, from the fact of one of them being a bird 

 bone. Two accompanying shells are Balanus Hameri and Sasicava rugosa, 

 post-tertiary species. The specimen^ were obtained from a railroa"d cutting on 

 the banks of the Penobscot River, Bangor, Maine, 47 feet below the surface. 

 The bird bone is a right humerus, resembling in its construction that of a 

 Curlew. 



, Except the so-called bird tracks of the triassic sandstones, almost no fossil 

 remains of birds have been found in the United States. The Museum of the 

 Academy contains a few specimens, which have not been identified, as 

 follows : 



A left humerus, almost identical with the one above mentioned, both in form 

 and size, from Tarboro', Edgecombe Co., N. C, presented by Dr. Booth. 



The lower extremity of a left humerus and a right radius, from a miocene 

 formation of Maryland, presented by T. A. Conrad. The specimens resemble 

 in construction the corresponding parts in a Snipe, but are as large as in the 

 Curlew. 



The lower end of a left tibia, from Burlington Co., N. J., described by Dr. Har- 

 lan as the remains of a Snipe, Scolopax (Med. and Phys. Res. p. 280.) 



The lower end of a left tibia, from the Niobrara River, of Nebraska, discov- 

 ered by Dr. Playden, in association with a multitude of mammalian remains. 

 It resembles the corresponding part in a Crane. It is the only ornithic fossil 

 among all the vertebrate remains from Nebraska, amounting to several tons in 

 weight, which Dr. L. had detected. 



June 12th. 

 The President, Dr. Hays, in the Chair. 



Twenty-two members present. 



June \th,. 

 The President, Dr. Hays, in the Chair. 

 Twenty-six members present. 



The deaths were announced of Hon. Lewis Cass, Correspondent, and 

 Prof. Henry D. Rogers, member of the Academy. 



1866.] 



