74 Proceedings of Learned Societies. 



9. Pristiurus, Bonaparte, (one species) Scy Ilium melanostomum, 

 Bonap. 



Some drawings were exhibited by Dr. Smith, of the fonns pre- 

 sented by the teeth of the species composing several of the above 

 sections, and he remarked that on a future evening it was his in- 

 tention to lay before the Society some further observations upon 

 other groups of the cartilaginous fishes. 



Professor Muller of Berlin being present confirmed the views en- 

 tertained by Dr. Smith as to the number of divisions which might 

 properly be made of the family Scyllium, several of which he had 

 already published, as mentioned by Dr. Smith. As to the rank which 

 these groups should hold in a systematic arrangement, he considered 

 this a point upon which we are hardly in possession of sufficient evi- 

 dence to justify a decided opinion. 



ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 



Dec. 4, 1837. — Sir Thomas Brisbane, Bart., President, in the Chair. 

 On the Food of the Vendace, Herring, and Salmon. By John Stark. 

 1 . Food of the Vendace (Coregonus Maranula, Jardine). The author 

 observed, that fishes in lakes, and feeding on animal food, must ne- 

 cessarily subsist on the small aquatic animals found in these lakes ; 

 that there is no reasonable analogy between the vendace and herring, 

 because they live in different mediums, the one in salt the other in 

 fresh water, and that their food cannot therefore be the same, none 

 of the animals upon which fishes feed being common to both ; that 

 writers on Natural History state the animalcules which are found in 

 the stomach of the vendace, and other minute animals found in lakes, 

 to be the food of freshwater fishes generally ; and that Leuwenhoek 

 had even figured the identical animal lately found in the stomach of 

 the vendace more than 130 years before, stating that it and the other 

 minute animals in similar localities formed the food of the larger 

 fishes. 



2. Food of the Herring (Clupea Harengus, Linn.). The author 

 stated that the food of the herring was better known than that of any 

 other fish : that the food of the herring was, in particular, known to 

 and described from personal observation by Paul Neucrantz previous 

 to the year 1654, by Leuwenhoek in 1696, by Muller in 1785, by 

 Bloch about the same period, by Fabricius in 1781, by Latreille and 

 Lac6pede in 1798, by the Rev. Dr. Scoresby in 1820, by Pennant and 

 others, and in fact is mentioned by every writer who treats of the na- 

 tural history of fishes ; and that what had been stated by all writers on 



