258 



Committee, with the view of obtaining a positive estimate of the 

 amount to be disbursed. 



3. Resolved, That should the aggregate cost, deduced from the 

 actual offers and proposals received, be found not to exceed the avail- 

 able fund as increased by further contributions, the Building Com- 

 mittee shall be empowered, without further action of the Society, to 

 make arrangements for commencing the building forthwith. 



The Report was accepted, and the Resolutions were 

 adopted. 



Dr. C. T. Jackson presented a specimen of Domeykite, 

 from the vicinity of Portage Lake, Lake Superior. 



The specific gravity is put down in the books at 4.5 ; he had ascer- 

 tained it 10 be 7.431. The hardness is 3^; color tin white, often irides- 

 c ent on surface ; it is sectile, and is readily crushed to a fine granular 

 powder. Its com2DOsition is, copper, 70.643, and arsenic 29.445, in 100 

 parts. 



Dr. White related an instance of intelligence in a hawk. 



It flew on board ship in a storm at sea, was fed, and partially 

 tamed, and finally on reaching port escaped, though with clipped 

 wings, flying and paddling toward the shore. Getting frightened, it 

 paddled' back to the vessel, passing by numerous others not very 

 unlike it, and on reaching the one it had left, climbed up by means of 

 a rope thrown to it. 



Dr. White read the following account of specimens added 

 to the department of Comparative Anatomy: — 



The following animals, forming the collection known by the name 

 of Goodwin's Menagerie, were collected mostly several years since 

 by Mr. John Sears. They were burned to death on the night of the 

 13th inst., by the taking fire of the stable in Portland street, below 

 the room in which they had just been placed in cages for exhibition. 

 The scene presented to one entering the blackened, half-burned 

 room, the following morning, was very pitiful and horrid. The 

 slender bars of the cages, which would have readily given way before 

 the dash of the larger brutes, had they known there was such a thing 

 as existence outside their narrow limits, showed no evidence of any 

 attempt at a forcible escape on their part. The positions of the 

 victims were expressive of the frightful nature of the death they 

 suffered ; some lying upon their backs, with paws uphfted, others 

 resting upon their companions, and all with parted lips. The male 

 Jaguar, the most savage of all, was found crouching in his old, sullen 

 attitude, with nose pushed far between the bars, and grasping the 

 iron with his paw defiantly. 



