101 



forwards, and a true lateral or transverse one wliich supports the 

 little rudimentary rib : the transverse process is smaller, but con- 

 siderably longer than those of the true cervical vertebree, and stands 

 more in a lateral or transverse direction. In the second dorsai 

 vertebra the anterior process does not esist, and the body assumes 

 the form of the succeeding ones. The transverse processes are 

 simple and obtuse, and the articular surface is slightly excavated. 



Mr. Bell exhibited, in illustration of his paper, the two skeletons 

 referred to ; that of the young individual being natūrai, and pre- 

 served with its connecting ligaments in spirit, The paper was 

 also accompanied by dravvings of the structure described in it. 



A paper was read, entitled " Remarks on the Nature of the Respi- 

 ratory Organs in certain Littoral MoUusca of Madeira: by the Rev. 

 R. T. Lowe, A. M., Corr. Memb. Z. S." It referred to certain ex- 

 periments published by the author in the 19th Number of the 

 ♦ Zoological Journal/ which were instituted with the view of ascer- 

 taining, by the duration of their life vvhen deprived byimmersion in 

 water of the access of free air, whether the aninials of Melampus, 

 Tornatella, &c., are pectinibranchiate or pulmoniferous. Mr, Lovve, 

 in his present paper, intended for publication in the šame Journal, 

 is anxious to guard againstthe too strict adoption of his conclusion 

 that animals which continue to exist for a long time immersed in 

 water cannot be lung-breathing ; as he conceives it to be possible 

 that in animals so comparatively low in organization as MoUusca, 

 the quantity of oxygen required for the aeration of the blood may 

 be so small as to be furnished even by sea-water to lung-bearing 

 races ; or, in the second place, the lungs being supposed to be in- 

 active during the immersion, that some compensating povver may 

 exist, as in the skins of the Batračhia, which may enable existence 

 to be prolonged for a considerable tin)e without the access of free 

 air to animals whose organization is adapted for breathing it. 



