70 Zoological Society. 



Referring to specimens contained in the collection of a new form 

 of Solenaceous Shell, described by him in the ' Journal of the Asi- 

 atic Society of Calcutta/ under the name of Novaculina, Mr. Ben- 

 son describes also a second species of the genus which he has recently 

 obtained from South America, and points out the characters which 

 distinguish it from Nov. Gangetica. 



The following Note by Mr. Benson relative to the importation of 

 the living Cerithium Telescopium, Brug., adverted to at the Meeting 

 on March 25, 1834, (vol. v. p. 145,) was read. 



" The possibility of importing from other countries, and especially 

 from the warmer latitudes, the animals which construct the innu- 

 merable testaceous productions that adorn our cabinets and mu- 

 seums, the accurate knowledge of which is so necessary to enable 

 the conchologist rightly to arrange this beautiful department of na- 

 ture, must be an interesting subject to every naturalist, and will 

 render no apology necessary for the following notices extracted from 

 my journal. Their publicity may incite others who may have op- 

 portunities of trying the experiment to follow the example. 



" January 1832. Observed near the banks of the canal leading 

 from the eastern suburb of Calcutta to the Salt Lake at Balliaghat, 

 heaps of a Cardita with longitudinal ribs, of a large and thick Cy- 

 rena, and of Cerithium Telescopium, exposed to the heat of the sun 

 for the purpose of effecting the death and decay of the included ani- 

 mals previously to the reduction of the shells into lime. 



" Early in the month I took specimens of them, and leaving them 

 for a night in fresh water I was surprised to find two Cerithia alive. 

 I kept them during a fortnight in fresh water, and on the 22nd 

 January carried them, packed up in cotton, on board a vessel bound 

 for England. After we had been several days at sea I placed them 

 in a large open glass with salt water, in which they appeared un- 

 usually lively. I kept them thus, changing the water at intervals, 

 until the 29th May, when we reached the English Channel. I then 

 packed them up, as before, in a box, and carried them from Ports- 

 mouth to Cornwall, and thence to Dublin, which I did not reach 

 until the 14th June ; here they again got fresh supplies of sea wa- 

 ter at intervals. One of them died during a temporary absence be- 

 tween the 30th June and 7th July ; and on the 11th July the sur- 

 vivor was again committed to its prison, and was taken to Cornwall 

 and thence to London, where it was delivered alive to Mr. G. B. 

 Sowerby on the 23rd July. 



'* This animal had thus travelled, during a period of six months, 

 over a vast extent of the surface of the globe, and had for a con- 

 siderable portion of that time been unavoidably deprived of its native 

 element." — W. H. B. 



At the request of the Chairman, Mr. Heming exhibited a Swift, 

 Cypselus Apus, 111., preserved in spirit, and showing a consider- 

 able dilatation at the base of the lower jaw and upper part of the 

 throat. White has observed that " Swifts, when wantonly and 

 cruelly shot while they have young, discover a lump of insects in 

 their mouths, which they pouch and hold under their tongue ;" 



