103 



Dr. Kneeland read a communication on the respiration of 

 the fishes of the blenny family and genus pliolis^ called 

 shauny in Europe, and of which a few specimens have been 

 taken in Boston Harbor. 



The shauny has the habit of creeping out of water by means of the 

 ventral fins as the tide recedes, hiding in crevices of the rocks, and 

 there remaining until the tide again rises ; they have been known to 

 live thirty hours in a dry box. In this fish there is no air-bladder ; 

 the gill openings are very large, and would seem to permit the gills to 

 become dry very soon, and produce death as soon as in the mackerel 

 and other fish with large gUl openings ; there does not appear to be 

 any special apparatus for separating the leaflets of the gills for admit- 

 ting and retaining air, and thus delaying the period of asphyxia ; 

 there is no labyrinthic arrangement as in the climbing perch 

 (AnaJxis), nor the small branchial openings of the eels. 



It seems most likely that the skin is the principal medium through 

 which respiration is effected in this fish while in the air, especially as 

 the body is soft and scaleless. We know that this cutaneous respira- 

 tion is sufiicient to purify the blood in some fishes, as the Synhranchus 

 of Guiana, which is found buried in the earth at a considerable dis- 

 tance from water ; and also in frogs and salamanders, both adult and 

 young. 



Professor Agassiz observed that although the gill openings in this 

 fish are very large, the cheeks, as in blennioids generally, are much 

 swollen, and the gill-covers fit very closely, and, the branchial rays 

 being soft, may serve to retain the water in the gills for a considera- 

 ble time. 



The President gave an account of a monstrosity which 

 he had recently examined, — a partially double pig. 



In this specimen there were two sets of lower extremities, the 

 bodies partly fused, two pairs of upper extremities, a single head, 

 two lateral ears, and a median one, and three nostrils on the snout. It 

 presented symmetrical organs on the median line made up of organs 

 naturally not on the median line and unsymmetrical ; this may take 

 place in any double organs, as the eyes, ears, legs, arms, lungs, kid- 

 neys, &c. ; he illustrated it by a comparison with the single terminal 

 leaf in plants, which is composed of the upper halves of two leaves. 

 In this pig, the doubling took place also in the brain. On separating 

 the two sides of the cerebral hemispheres, which were made up of 

 the right hemisphere of one brain and the left hemisphere of another, 

 was seen a third hemisphere, with a single optic thalamus and striated 

 body, and below these organs double ; to each of the lateral hemi- 

 spheres was appended a distinct cerebellum and spinal marrow. It is 



