361 



might be to press the ova from the female, just as they were 

 about being extruded. He had seen male and female 

 Suckers (Catostomus Bostoniensis) side by side, in close 

 contact, during the breeding season, probably for a similar 

 purpose. Dr. Durkee had noticed the same thing in the 

 habits of the Brook Trout. 



September 21st, 1853. 



Dr. Samuel Cabot in the Chair. 



Mr. C. J. Sprague stated that the species of Coccus which 

 has infested the grape vines in Boston, the present season, 

 had come under his notice for some years past, at the south 

 part of the city. 



Dr.W. I. Burnett exhibited specimens of the Cotton-worms, 

 which he had made the subject of a communication at a 

 previous meeting. He also read extracts from a letter from 

 Mr. Chisholm, dated Beaufort, S.C, September 5th, announ- 

 cing the appearance of these worms, out of regular season, 

 in several plantations, where they have appeared in a simi- 

 lar way before. 



Dr. Burnett called the attention of the Society to a new 

 form of muscle, recently described in Miiller's Archives, 

 existing in the wing-moving muscles of insects, by which 

 they are enabled to execute the inconceivably rapid move- 

 ments of which they are capable. In these muscles, the 

 fibrillae, instead of being bound together like the strands of 

 a rope, as in ordinary muscles, are inclosed in separate 

 sheaths, like parallel strings in a musical instrument, so 

 that each one is capable of contracting by itself. Dr. 



