PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 



Mr. Andrews described the characteristics of this hand some duck, deriving its name 

 from the loose, angular skin attached to the upper mandibles. It is termed 

 " Wrongi" in New South Wales, and known as the pink-eyed duck by the colonists 

 of Swan River. At the same time was also noticed the capture of the dusky 

 petrel (Puffinus obscurus), in the month of May of the same year, off the Island of 

 Valencia ; and also the obtaining, in Dingle Bay, the young of the greater shear- 

 water (Puffinus major), but termed Puffinus fuliginosus of Strickland, and, at the 

 time, considered to be distinct from the great shearwater (Puffinus cinereus). Mr. 

 K. J. Montgomery exhibited a specimen of the great cinereous shrike (Lanius 

 excubitor), and the black-cap warbler (Motacilla atricapilla), both shot by him 

 in Beaulieu Wood, county of Louth. The shrike, or butcher-bird, was the fifteenth 

 of its record in Ireland. Mr. Andrews noticed that it had been communicated to 

 him by Mr. Blackburn, of Valencia, that the turnstone (Strepsilas interpres), with 

 four young ones, unable to fly, were taken, in the month of June, near the old 

 revenue station, in that Island, being confirmatory of the breeding of that bird in 

 Ireland. At the meeting, in the month of January, of this year, Professor Allman 

 stated some observations that he had made on a remarkable peculiarity of the ad- 

 ventitious roots of " Jussiasa Grandiflora." The remarkable condition he 

 observed, was in a specimen of this plant which grew in the College 

 Botanical Gardens. Some of the roots which proceed from the nodes of the 

 stem, instead of growing downwards, so as to fasten themselves in the mud in 

 the bottom of the water in which the plant grows, assume an ascending 

 direction, and grow into the air, where they present a very remarkable appear- 

 ance, looking Jike portions of rush-pith attached to the stem of the plant. 

 A microscopical examination of these roots exhibited peculiar structures of ex- 

 ceedingly delicate stellate cells the intercellular spaces constituting air chambers 

 of a very remarkable character in the vegetable kingdom. In the woody fibres 

 of the same plant, Professor Allman discovered the remarkable peculiarity of 

 their being filled with starch granules a state of prosenchymatous tissue almost 

 unique in the vegetable kingdom. This was followed by a paper from Mr. 

 Andrews " On the Harbour Fish of the south-west coast of Ireland," principally 

 relating to those fish that were permanent residents in harbours and estuaries, 

 and those that visited such localities for the purposes of spawning. He alluded 

 to the great attraction and interest afforded in the Zoological Gardens of 

 London, by the arrangement of those extensive tanks in the vivaria, where the 

 habits, modes of progression, and the seeking of food, which influence marine 

 animals, form a pleasing study to the accurate observer, who is thus enabled 

 to detect important facts in their economy and habits, which the silent depths of 

 their haunts veil from inquiry, and render observation of, conjectural. In the enu- 

 meration of the several genera and species, Mr. Andrews described the habits, 

 characters, and localities of some rare and beautiful species he had obtained on 

 the south-west coast, and concluded by noticing positions where extensive store- 

 ponds could be formed, and in which the habits, and spawning states of our deep- 

 water marine fish could be traced, and where not alone important physiological 

 facts could be arrived at, but the accumulation of stores of fish, which would 

 be available at seasons as a valuable traffic. Mr. Callwell said, the subject 

 brought forward was one of great interest and value, both to the scientific and to 

 the practical. He could confirm, with regard to the fisheries, how useful the for- 

 mation of such store-ponds would be. At the Island of Innistrahull, about six 

 miles from Malin Head, off the coast of Donegal, the islanders supplied vessels 

 with fish on passing the island. They had fine whale boats ; and during the 

 fishing seasons brought the fish alive, which they placed in a store-pond, naturally 

 formed in the island ; and they were thus prepared to put turbot and other prime 

 fish on board the steamers on the passage from Sligo to Glasgow, or to Liverpool. 

 Mr. Ffennell, Commissioner of Fisheries, commented on the importance of the 

 concluding part of Mr. Andrews's statements ; and as bearing on the artificial pro- 

 pagation of fish, he noticed the operations carrying on in the salmon fisheries of this 

 country. He read a report communicated by Mr. Buist, of Perth, and stated the 

 system of the propagation of the ova of the salmon, by Mr. liamsbottom and by 

 the Messrs. Ashworth, in Lough Corrib, the experiments in progress at St. 



