r 



33 



previous meeting in reference to the deposit of metallic 

 silver and copper in contact, yet unalloyed, and to the 

 forms impressed in the copper by crystals of other min- 

 eral substances. 



Dr. Cabot remarked that Mr. Baird, in Vol. 9 of the Pacific 

 Railroad Keport, makes Scolopax Drwnmondii a synonyme of S. 

 Wilsonu, though with a qucErt. Dr. Cabot had obtained speci- 

 mens of the latter in Massachusetts at all seasons of the year, 

 and he never saw one approaching the former in plumage ; the 

 proportions of the two species are also unmistakably different. 

 In his opinion it would be hard to find two allied birds more dif- 

 ferent in almost all respects than the two considered the same 

 species by Mr. Baird. 



Mr. James Lewis, of Mohawk, N. Y., a corresponding 

 member, writes, in a letter addressed to the Secretary : 



That within a few years, the Mohawk River has afforded speci- 

 mens of Menohranchus maculatus. The first that he had any 

 information of was caught about five years ago in a net, by per- 

 sons fishing in the Mohawk. It was then considered a very rare 

 thing. More recently, they have been taken on hooks by an- 

 glers ; and are beginning now to be of less interest as novelties. 

 Early last spring, while the foundations of one of the old locks in 

 the Erie Canal at this place were being taken up, to be replaced 

 by a new structure, several specimens of this reptile were seen, 

 one of wdiich, about sixteen inches long, was taken alive and 

 brought to him. In the summer following, two about a foot long 

 were taken by a fisherman in the Mohawk. They undoubtedly 

 have come out of the great lakes, probably through the canal from 

 Oswego, and very likely w^ill, ere long, be common in the canal 

 and river, from near Oneida Lake to Albany. , 



Prof. Parsons alluded to the method of preserving food in air- 

 tight vessels. According to Liebig's theory of eremacausis, if the 

 can be not completely exhausted of air, the decay caused by the 

 chemical action of the oxygen of a single bubble, propagates itself 

 until the whole mass is infected. 



PROCEEDINGS B. S. N. H. VOL. VII. 3 JUNE, 1859 



