a rare Species of Octopus Jrom the Firth ofFo^th. 317 



and a small red-coloured stone shaped like a limpet, the only 

 earthy matter in this animal. These small bones of the ear are co- 

 nical, solid, of a rose-red colour on the sides, flat and white on 

 the base ; their apex is rounded and curved backward, their length, 

 breadth, and height, are about half a line. When cut, they appear 

 white and translucent within, like the inner layers of an oyster shell j 

 they are very slightly excavated in the centre of their flat base, and 

 they dissolve with effervescence when touched with nitric acid, 

 like other substances composed of carbonate of lime. The great 

 nervous trunk accompanying the small artery in the central tube of 

 the arms, the great ganglion, with about twenty nerves radiating 

 from it, placed within the upper and back part of the mantle, and 

 the other nerves and ganglia, were very conspicuous, and corre- 

 sponded in distribution to those of the vulgaris. 



The specimen I dissected was ^ female, and the ovarium, consist- 

 ing of beautiful detached ramified trunks, enclosed in a wide mem- 

 branous sac, occupied the lowest part of the general cavity of the 

 body, as in the other cephalopodous animals. The ova, instead of 

 being attached by their peduncles to a single point, as in the vulga- 

 ris (See Cuv. Mem. p. SI. J, were attached to the extreme ramifica- 

 tions of about twenty branched trunks, which hung by separate 

 stalks from the upper end of the membranous sac. The two reni- 

 form glands through which the oviducts pass, and which very pro- 

 bably secret the coverings of the ova, as in the skate and other 

 fishes, and connect them together, were about the size of a pea, of 

 the same dark colour as the lateral hearts, and were placed about 

 half an inch from the lower end of the oviducts. The oviducts 

 opened on each side about half way between the lateral hearts and 

 the anus. 



Meteorological Observations made in Jamaica hy the late John 

 Lindsay, Esq. Surgeon, Jamaica. Communicated by W. 

 C. Trevelyan, Esq. M. W. S. &c. 



L HE author of the following Tables is well know'ii to the pub- 

 lic. He published an account of the Epidemic Catarrh of the 

 latter end of the year 1789, as it appeared in Jamaica, in Med. 

 Com, vol. xvii. p. 499, 1792. Also, an account of the Germina- 

 tion and Raising of Ferns from Seed, Trans. Lin. Soc. vol. xi. 

 p. 93, 1792 ; of the Quassia Polygama, or Bitter Wood of Ja- 

 maica ; and, of the Cinchona brachycarpa, a new species of Je- 

 suit's Bark, found in the same island, Trans, Soc. Edin. vol. iii. 

 p. 205, 1794. 



