DUBLIN MATUHAL IU8T0BY 80CIKTT. 81 



tute of teeth above, except a minute one near apex. Eleven Bpines ar- 

 ticulated to the rostrum above ; four distinct teeth beneath ; interspaces 

 between spines and teeth, with a few hairs ; a well developed tooth at 

 base of orbit, and a small one below ; internal antenn© lobed at base. 



Colour : clear uniform red. 



Habitat : sandpools in Zostera bank, laminarian zone, Dublin Bay. 



The spinules on the superior margin of the rostrum are articulated 

 to it, as in P. annuh'e&mis. Five of them are large and hooked, and si- 

 tuated on the carapace, the fifth being at the edge of ocular notch ; 

 there is then a moderately wide interspace : the remaining six spinules 

 being crowded together, and rapidly diminishing in size. The inferior 

 teeth very minute, and situated near the apex of rostrum; there is no 

 dilatation in the rostrum anterior to the ocular notch below, and a nearly 

 total absence of the setae which so thickly adorn the interspaces of both 

 teeth and spinules in F. annulicomis. In habits, the animal resembled 

 H. variam, in company with which it was taken. 



The beak in typical specimens of P. Jeffrey di is straight. 



The Meeting then adjourned to the 8th of January. 



FRIDAY EVENING, JANUARY 8, 1858. 



Pkofessor W. H. Haevev, M.D., M.R.I. A., F.L.S., President, 

 in the Chair. 



The Minutes of the previous Meeting having been read and con- 

 firmed — 



' Mr. R. P. "Williams apologised for the unavoidable absence of Mr. 

 Andrews, o>ving to which Lord Clermont's communication, relative to 

 the Mute Swan, was postponed. He had to present, on behalf of Lord 

 Clermont, a specimen of the mute swan ( C ol(yr\ captured under cir- 

 cumstances which left little doubt of its being a truly wild specimen 

 {vide ** Proceedings" for February, 1858, posted). 



A special vote of thanks was passed to Lord Clermont for his dona- 

 tion. 



Mr J. B. Doyle submitted to the Society a communication he had re- 

 ceived from his Mend, Robert Evatt, Esq., Mount Louise, an observant 

 naturalist, in reference to the habits of the mute swan, whether it was 

 known that the male bird assisted and relieved the female bird on tho 

 nest during the season of hatching ? He had observed the male swan 

 preparing the nest, and sitting on it, previous to the eggs being laid by 

 the female; but, although he had for some time been watching, he never 

 could detect the male swan in the act of incubation, until one evening, 

 rowing over to the ishmd, he found him actually on the nest, the female 

 not being in sight — the bird was sitting, at the time, on six eggs. Al- 

 though he had been endeavouiing for twenty years to breed swans, he had 



