Meteo7vlogical Society, 601 



Mr. Charlesworth then exhibited a series of specimens of the paper 

 nautilus, in several of which injuries to a very considerable extent 

 had been repaired with new substance agreeing in every respect 

 with the original shell ; affording the most decisive evidence that 

 the animal by which they were constructed possessed the same re- 

 l)arative powers as other testaceous molluscs. It would appear from 

 the observations of Captain Rang, who had recently repeated at 

 Algiers the experiments originally undertaken by Madame Jeanette 

 Power at Messina, that the Poulp does not fill up the breaches arti- 

 ficially produced in its habitation by a deposit of shelly matter, but 

 with a transparent diaphragm, which has neither the texture, white- 

 ness, or solidity of the original shell. This fact, in connection with 

 the specimens exhibited to the Meeting, apj^eared to Mr. Charles- 

 worth strongly to confirm the opinion entertained by Mr. Gray, De 

 Blainville, and others, of the parasitic character of the genus Ocythoe. 



Mr. Owen remarked, that he could not admit the validity of the 

 line of argument adopted by Mr. Charlesworth, because the dif- 

 ferences in the nature of the rejiroduced portions might depend 

 upon the particular part of the shell in which the perforation or 

 fracture had been effected, and a consequent difference in the repro- 

 ductive powers of the corresponding part of the mantle. 



METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



April 10, 1838. — An interesting paper on the cold of January 

 last, as experienced at Brussels, communicated by Prof. Quetelet, 

 Secretary to the Royal Academy of Brussels, was read by the 

 Secretary. The extreme cold which occurred on the 20th of the 



in the description of my preparation, so far as relates to the allantois, 

 by M. Costc, I here subjoin, by permission of the Committee of Publi- 

 cation, a statement of the circumstances which enabled that embryologist 

 to announce the discovery of the allantois to the Academy of Sciences. 

 In a recent work on Embryogeny, M. Coste * has stated that the Marsupiata 

 differ from other Mammaha in the absence of an allantois, — a statement 

 which appears to have arisen from a misconception of my memoir in the 

 Philosophical Transactions for 1834, in wliich, although the allantois was 

 not developed in the embryo, whose dissection is there figured, (PI. VII. 

 fig. 1.), yet the evidences of the ulterior development of an allantois in dif- 

 ferent marsupial genera, are described in the text, (p. 338, 312.) I therefore 

 took the opportunity of showing to Dr. Coste during his visit to England the 

 foetal Kangaroo with the allantois now before the Society; and Mr. Coste 

 having expressed some doubts respecting my determination of the two ap- 

 pended sacs, we together dissected the fa^tus, and found that the vessels ra- 

 mifying on the larger sac, which 1 had before described as the umbilical 

 vesicle, had the usual disposition and connections within the abdomen of 

 omphalo-mesenteric trunks, corresponding with the figure above-cited in the 

 Philosophical Transactions, and that the allantois was continued from an 

 urachus, such as is represented in figs. 6, 7 and 8, pi. VII., Philos. Trans., 

 1834." 



* Emhryogenie comparee, p. 118. 



