278 



Oldest person, 56 years ; youngest, 18 years ; tallest, 6 ft. 4 in. ; 

 shortest, 5 ft. 3 in. ; heaviest, 205 lbs.; lightest, 110 lbs. Born 

 in Boston, 70 ; in other parts of Massachusetts, 21 ; in Maine, 4; 

 in New Hampshire, 2 ; in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsyl- 

 vania, 1 each ;= 100 men. 



Prof. Jeffries Wyman made a communication on two 

 parasites which he had recently had an opportunity of 

 examining. 



During the last winter in Florida he found that the alligators 

 almost always had in the last branches of the portal veins a spe- 

 cies of Linguatula. This belongs to one of the migratory types ; 

 in its perfect form it appears lower than in its imperfect condition, 

 — the young having certain crustacean affinities, while the adult is 

 classed among worms ; the young have no generative organs, and 

 live in some vegetable-feeding animals, which are swallowed by 

 carnivora, from whose intestines they wander to the liver and 

 other parts of the body. 



The other parasite was a Gordiaceous worm found under the 

 dura mater of the Anhinga or snake-bird, between the cerebellum 

 and the cerebral hemispheres. He found it in seven out of eight 

 specimens examined, and it probably existed in the eighth ; it 

 resembled Gordius, with the mouth anterior, the genital opening 

 posterior, and no anal opening. This belongs also to a migratory 

 group. It was found in no other part of the bird. 



Dr. C. T. Jackson exhibited a large mass of pearl- 

 covered secretion from a Unio from Michigan ; the nacre 

 thrown out in this case was uncommonly large, and di- 

 vided like a bunch of small grapes. 



