26 



March 24, 1846. 



William Yarrell, Esq., Vice-President, in the Chair. 



The first communication was the following Note from Mr. Gulliver, 

 on the size of the Blood-Corpuscles of Birds, -nith measurements by 

 Dr. Da%y of the Blood-Corpuscles of some Fishes and of a Humming 

 Bird. 



While my friend Dr. Davy \vas employed by our Government on 

 a special medical serv'ice at Constantinople, and afterwards as princi- 

 pai mediced officer at Barbadoes, he communicated to me the mea- 

 surements, appended hereto, of the blood-corpuscles of some animals. 

 Medical ofiicers residing in different parts of the world might 

 render a very acceptable service to physiology, by giving an account 

 of the blood-corpuscles not yet examined of various animals ; and 

 doubtless some new or other^'ise interesting facts would thus be ob- 

 tained, especially among the larger Cetacea, the smallest birds, the 

 cartilaginous fishes, reptiles and amphibia. 



Dr. Davy shows that somefoetal sharks, six or seven inches long, 

 have oval corpuscles likę those of the adult ; and he confirms Pro- 

 fessor Wagner's obsen-ation as to their large size in this family. 



Although, in a strictly natūrai family of Mammalia, as the Rodents 

 or the Ruminants, there is a relation between the size of the corpus- 

 cles and that of the animal, there is no such relation in Mammalia 

 of different ordėrs. But in the entire class of Birds the law for the 

 size of the corpuscles is the šame as in a single family of Mammalia ; 

 at least among birds no example has yet been found of comparatively 

 large corpuscles in the smallest species and of more minute corpus- 

 cles in the largest species. I have elsewhere* remarked the neces- 

 sity of examining the blood of the Humming Birds with reference to 

 this view ; •which is now supported by Dr. Davy's observation, show- 

 ing that the corpuscles of a bird of this kind are as small as those 

 hitherto examined of any bird, as may he seen by reference to the 

 copious tables of my measurements of the blood-corpuscles of Verte- 

 brata, in the ' Proceedings of the Zoological Society,' October 14, 

 184^. The long diameter of the corpuscles of Ralius Philippinensis 

 is l-2097th of an iuch, and not l-2997th, as there printed. In my 

 observations in this class, those great birds the Ostrich and the Java- 

 nese Cassowary were found to have the largest blood-corpuscles ; 

 while the smallest corpuscles occurred in the little insectivorous and 

 granivorous birds. The average length of the corpuscles of the Cas- 

 so\vary vras l-1455th and their breadth l-2800th of an inch. 



These reraarks all refer to the red corpuscles ; and the measure- 

 ments of them in the foUou'ing notes by Dr. Davy are, likę all my 

 measurements, in vulgar fractions of an English inch. — G. G. 

 * Gerber's Anatomy, Appendis, p. 26. Lond. 1842. 



