February 17, 1843. 



The President in the Chair. 



Dr. Storer read a report on the Indian Cyprinidae. being 

 a notice of the Report on this family of fishes prepared and 

 published in the Asiatic Researches by Geo. McClelland, 

 Surgeon in the Bengal service. (See Silliman's Journal, 

 XLI. 92.) 



Mr. S. L. Abbot made a verbal report on the stuffed spe- 

 cimen of an Albatross belonging to the Cabinet. 



There is some difficulty in identifying birds on account of the 

 difference of plumage at different periods of life. Those species 

 which are white when adult, are generally darker when young. 

 The present specimen is probably the young of the Diomedea ex- 

 ulans. The Diomedese strongly resemble the gulls in their habits 

 and external characters ; the upper mandible strongly hooked at its 

 extremity, the lower one truncated ; the orifices of the nostrils ter- 

 minating in a horny tube. They are in the habit of wandering to 

 a great distance from the shore ; sometimes met with at the distance 

 of 600 or 700 leagues. The nest is constructed on the earth, prin- 

 cipally of sedge, in which a single egg is deposited ; and the male 

 is said to provide food for the female during the period of incuba- 

 tion. At this time the female is said to be inoffensive, though ordi- 

 narily fierce and unmanageable. The Albatross is exceedingly 

 voracious, and is in the habit of disgorging food for its young. It 

 is said to perform long migrations from the southern to north- 

 ern latitudes, appearing in Kamtschatka at the same time with the 

 salmon. 



Dr. Gay offered a verbal report on a notice of Liebig's 

 Agricultural Chemistry, published in the January number 

 of Silliman's Journal, 1841, in which he compared the con- 

 dition of Agricultural Chemistry, as laid down in that work, 

 and the progress it had made in this country. 



Dr. C. T. Jackson stated that, since allusion had been 



