144 Zoological Society : — 



In this department of research, we are indeed placed in the 

 anomalous position of being obliged to designate by distinct 

 generic and specific names two organisms, as if they were totally 

 independent, instead of being merely zooids of the same ovum 

 — terms of one and the same unbroken life-series. 



The necessity, however, which we are under of subjecting 

 to distinct treat?nent, in descriptive zoology, the polypal and the 

 medusal terms of this series, renders it impossible to abandon 

 the practice, even though it be to a certain extent modified 

 when continued observation shall enable us to refer every 

 polype-sprung Medusa to its proper zoophyte. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



November 9, 1858.— Dr. Gray, F.R.S., V.P., in the Chair. 



On a Living Octopus. By J. P. G. Smith, Esq. 

 In a Letter to Dr. Gray, F.R.S. 



" We found a Sea-spider at Goldthorpe Roads, in St. Bride's Bay, 

 which I brought home, and have examined with much interest. Its 

 habits and attitudes are very different from anything I ever saw 

 figured. I enclose a sketch of its appearance when at rest. It seems 

 very well, and shows great objection to be disturbed. 



" I noticed that the habit of the Cuttle-fish, when in a large pool 

 on the sands, was to get into a corner formed by a piece of rock, and 

 to fix itself by the suckers of the arms, sac downwards — and that 

 much more flattened and spread out than when lying on the bottom 

 of the vase ; the eyes made the apex of an irregular obtuse pyramid. 

 It assumed at times a much darker and richer colour, almost chest- 

 nut, mottled with lighter shades ; and its skin became more wrinkled ; 

 and instead of two inspirations and exhalations in succession, it only 

 made one at about the same intervals, but with a much stronger jet 

 of water through the siphon. Upon my return, I placed it in a 

 pitcher of salt water inside the large foot-bath ; and while I ran to 

 the sea to fill a vessel with fresh salt water, it had leaped out upon 

 the verandah, and then fallen into the road beneath, by which it was 

 so much injured that it died in the night. After death it became 

 pallid, with scarcely a trace of colour left, and the eyes wide open, 

 round, and black. I felt quite sorry to lose the brute : there was 

 something exceedingly interesting and grotesque about its habits. 



attended with loss of time and labour to others who may be working on 

 the same field, and would admit of great abuse in the hands of less scru- 

 pulous investigators than my friend Dr. Wright. 



