be specially sought for. These facts are also interesting as show- 

 ing the great differences which exist in animals in their several 

 conditions of metamorphosis, and as indicating the caution with 

 which the results of experiments on one species should be received 

 as applying to other species. The popular belief that a body, 

 dead from the effects of arsenic, must of necessity be preserved 

 from decay for an indefinite length of time, is unquestionably an 

 error ; in many cases of murder or suicide, where a great amount 

 of the poison is administered, portions of or even the whole body 

 may be preserved for a long time ; but the few grains, which it is 

 admitted are enough to cause death, cannot preserve from decay 

 so large a mass as a human body. That a small, though fiital, 

 dose will not prevent decomposition, is well known to all who have 

 ever had poisoned rats die in the walls of their houses. 



Mr. Putnam exhibited specimens of the young of Pomotis vul- 

 garis, P. appendix, and P. ruhricauda, and showed that the speci- 

 mens presented by Mr. Thoreau, at the last meeting, were not 

 the young of any of these species ; but by having teeth on the 

 palatines they were generically distinct, and belonged to the genus 

 Bryttus of Valenciennes. He thought that they might prove to 

 be the Pomotis obesus of Girard ; but owing to the very short 

 description given by Mr. Girard in the 5th volume of the Pro- 

 ceedings of the Society, it will be impossible to decide this ques- 

 tion until we have an opportunity of seeing his original specimens. 

 He mentioned that there were specimens of the same species from 

 Philadelphia, at the museum at Cambridge, and that he had also 

 received specimens from several localities near Salem, from Dr. 

 P. H. Wheatland, and that it was very nearly allied to the Bryt- 

 tus fasciatus of Dr. Holbrook. He also exhibited specimens of 

 the young and adult pickerel, to show that the " short-nosed pick- 

 erel " is specifically distinct from the " long-nosed " — the JEsox 

 reticidatus — and said that the " short-nosed " species is the 

 Esox fasciatus of Dekay, which is not the young of the Bsox reti- 

 cidatus, as Dr. Storer considers it, and that the Esox ornatus of 

 Girard, which is adopted by Dr. Stoi*er in his last number of the 

 " Fishes of Massachusetts," is synonymous with the Esox fasci- 

 atus of Dekay ; and therefore Girard's name would have to be 

 dropped, and the name of Esox fasciatus, Dekay, would have to 



