Resolved, That each individual member be requested to con- 

 sider what books, if any, he can spare from his private collec- 

 tion, and make more extensively useful by adding them to the 

 Library of the Society ; and that he be requested so to deposit 

 them, either as a gift or under such conditions as he may see fit. 



January 19, 1848. 

 The President in the Chair. 



A large number of members present. 



Dr. Kneeland read an account of a dissection by him of 

 the organs of an Alligator, which died recently in this city, 

 from injuries received by falling out of a window. Paper 

 referred to Publishing Committee. 



Dr. Gould made some remarks in regard to the phospho- 

 rescence of animals, alluded to at the last meeting, and the 

 experiments and conclusions of Prof. Matteucci with refer- 

 ence to it. Prof. M. had placed glow-worms in oxygen gas 

 and in atmospheric air, both the entire bodies and the lumi- 

 nous portions only. After the luminosity was extinguished, 

 he found the air had lost oxygen and gained carI)onic acid. 

 Hence he concluded that a real combustion takes place. 



Dr. Gould thought the experiments indecisive, inasmuch as the 

 effects observed were precisely those of respiration, for which no 

 allowance had been made. It did not appear that the same results 

 would not follow from placing any other insects under the same 

 conditions. In some of the experiments, parts of bodies only 

 were used ; yet the bodies of insects being provided with air- 

 tubes and ganglia throughout their whole length, portions of them 

 for some time after separation would still produce the effect of 

 the entire body, on the surrounding air. 



Dr. Cabot remarked, that fire-flies leave a line of light on any 

 surface upon which they may be rubbed. The odor of fire-flies, 



