47 

 i I 11. Mittlieiliiîigeu aus Miiseeii, ïnstitiiteii etc. 



1. Zoological Society of London. 



2 P*" December, 1SS6. — The Secretary read a report on the additions 

 that had been made to the Society's Menagerie during the month of Novem- 

 ber, 1886. — Mr. Howard Saunders, F.Z.S., exhibited and made remarks 

 on a specimen of a hybrid between the Tufted Duck and the Pochard, bred 

 in Lancashire in 1886. — Mr. J. Bland Sutton, F.Z.S., read a paper on 

 Atavism, being a critical and analytical study on this subject. — Dr. von 

 Lendenfeld read a paper on the classification and systematic position of 

 the Sponges. This was based on the recent researches on the Hexactinellida, 

 Tetractinellida, and Monaxonida of the »Challenger« Expedition, and on his 

 own investigations on the rich Australian Sponge-fauna, particularly of the 

 groups Calcarea, ChalinidîP, and Horny Sponges. A complete system of 

 Sponges was proposed, and worked out down to the families and subfamilies, 

 and all the principal genera were mentioned. An approximately complete list 

 fo the literature of Sponges (comprising the titles of 1446 papers;, a »key« 

 to the determination of the 46 families, and a discussion of the systematic 

 position of the Sponges were also contained in the paper. — Prof. Hay Lan- 

 kester communicated a paper by Dr. A. Gibbs Bourne, of the Presidency 

 College, Madras, on Indian Earthworms, containing an account of the Earth- 

 worms collected and observed by the author during excursions to the Nilgiris 

 and Shevaroy Hills. Upwards of twenty new species were described. — 

 P L. S c 1 a t e r , Secretary. 



2. Linnean Society of London. 



lô'"^ December 1886. — The President announced that Sir George 

 MacLeay, K.C.M.G., had presented to the Society, a portrait of the late 

 Rev. William Kir by the distinguished Entomologist, and the manuscripts 

 and Correspondence of his Father, Alexander MacLeay elected F.L.S. 17S6, 

 and formerly Secretary to the Society. — A special vote of thanks was 

 accorded to Sir George by the Fellows for his valuable donation. — Mr. 

 Edward A. Heath exhibited a stormy Petrel, Procellaria pelagica^ which was 

 picked up alive in Kensington Gardens on the 9'^ December. The bird evi- 

 dently harl been driven landwards by the great storm of the preceding day. 

 — Experiments on the sense of smell in Dogs was the title of a paper read 

 by Dr. George J. Romanes. After preliminary observations on the faculties 

 of special sense generally and in particular that of smell as enormously de- 

 veloped in Carnivora and Ruminantia, the Author related his own experi- 

 ments with a setter-bitch. His conclusions are that in the case of this 

 animal she distinguished his trail from that of all others by the peculiar smell 

 of his boots, and not by the peculiar smell of his feet. No doubt the smell 

 which she recognized as belonging distinctively to my trail was communi- 

 cated to the boots by the exudations from my feet : but these exudations 

 required to be combined with shoe-leather before they were recognised by 

 her. Moreover it may be inferred that if I had always been accustomed to 

 shoot without boots or stockings, she wouLl have learnt to associate witli 

 me a trail made by my bare feet. The experiments farther show tha.t although 

 a few square millimetres of the surface of one boot is amply sufficient to 

 make a trail which the animal can reco<?nise as mine, the scent is not able to 



