Miscellaneous. 221 



importance, which indeed will form a continuation or supplement 

 nearly allied to that of Schimper. It is in the full expectation of 

 a part of Kotschy's collections being received at Esslingen from this 

 traveller in the course of the present year that the directors of the 

 Society feel themselves warranted in requesting new members to 

 subscribe for shares from so low as 30 to 60 florins (3/. 3s. to 61. 6s. 

 sterling) or upwards, according to the portion they may wish to se- 

 cure. The subscription price is fixed at the same as Schimper's 

 was, viz. 15 florins (1/. lis. 6d. sterling) per 100 species. 



Third, Welwitsch, who has been despatched to the Azores and 

 Cape de Verde islands, and whose collections (including the plants he 

 gathered during his detainment at Lisbon, and which are themselves 

 far from inconsiderable) are shortly expected to arrive. A single 

 share for this expedition is stated at 24 florins. 



* ;(c * The Society still have at disposal to Non subscribers a few 



collections from the former expeditions, viz. Georgio-Caucasian, 



North American, and Egyptio- Arabian, at from 15 to 25 florins per 



century. 



9, Queen-street, Soho-square. London, 

 May 1st, 1840. 



NOTE ON ARGULUS FOLIJCEUS, JURINE. BY WM. THOMPSON, 

 VICE-PRES. NAT. HIST. SOC. OF BELFAST. 



Belfast, Oct. 29, 1838. — In our market today I had the pleasure 

 of detecting one of these very interesting and handsome parasites at- 

 tached to the dorsal fin of a Sahno Trutta, about a foot in length. 

 The Argulus is 3^ lines long, is a female, and in addition to the 

 ova exhibits at the base of the tail the dark green spots (" noirs," 

 Desm. Consid. Gen. Crust., p. 332), which are considered to mark 

 this sex. Although the fish to which it was attached had been 

 for some hours out of the water, the Argulus held so firmly by 

 its two disks that I had some difficulty in detaching it without in- 

 jury. For about ten minutes it was wrapped in a piece of dry paper, 

 and then placed in a vessel of water in which salt had been dis- 

 solved until it was to the taste like strong sea-water*. This was no 

 sooner done, than my pretty captive, after drawing her last pair of 

 feet together several times f, thus calling to mind the common house 



* This was done inconsequence of my having been told that the fish was 

 taken in the sea ; the stomach, however, contained the remains of fresh- 

 water insects (according to my friend A. H. Haliday, Esq., to whose in- 

 spection they were submitted), which possibly might have been washed into 

 the sea and there obtained, but this is by no means probable. 



f I observed this repeatedly done afterwards — they seem to be rubbed 

 against the caudal plates. 



