ON THE HABITS OF THE MARINE TESTACEA. 129 
It is intended to add to this apparatus a wet-pulb thermometer; this will 
involve only the addition of another platina wire to the rack, and of another 
insulated wire, reaching from the balloon to the earth, with its interposed 
galvanometer. 
For other meteorological instruments, the indications of which are to be 
transmitted to a distance, I occasionally employ the agency of electro-mag- 
netism to ring a bell, to mark with a type or pencil, &c.; but for the purpose 
in question such methods cannot be so conveniently employed as the deflection 
of the needle of a galvanometer, on account of the necessity of having the 
long conducting wire extremely fine in order to avoid adding too much to the 
weight of the balloon. If the electro-motive force of the rheomotor were in- 
creased, which it would be necessary to do were stronger currents required, 
sparks would occur at the surface of contact of the mercury, which would pro- 
duce injurious effects. 
Report of the Committee for the Translation and Publication of 
Foreign Scientific Memoirs. 
Since the last meeting of the British Association the Committee have ob- 
tained and published in the 10th and 11th Numbers of Taylor’s “ Scientific 
Memoirs,” translations of the four following works, viz.— 
1. Gauss’s Dioptric Researches. 
2. Dr. Lamont’s Account of the Magnetical Instruments in use at the 
Observatory in Munich. 
3. Gauss on the Magnetic Inclination at Gottingen. 
4. Dr.Lamont’s Results of Three Years’ Magnetical Observations at Munich. 
The first of these translations was presented to the Committee by Professor 
Miller of Cambridge, and the three others by Lieut.-Colonel Sabine. A plate 
accompanying the translation of one of Dr. Lamont’s memoirs has been en- 
graved at the expense of the Association, but as the account of its cost, though 
requested some time since, has not yet been sent in, there has been no expen- 
diture under the direction of the Committee in the past year. 
(Signed in the name of the Committee) Epwarp SaBINE. 

On the Habits of the Marine Testacea. By C. W. Peacn. 
THE author commenced with stating that Purpura lapillus deposits its nidi 
all the year round, but most actively in the first four months of the year; the 
young escape from the nidi in about four months. 
Buccinum reticulatum deposits its nidi on weeds, stones, and the wicker- 
work of the store pots of the crab-catchers; they are strung together and 
overlie each other like the brass scales on the straps used for holding on the 
caps of soldiers ; they are of the shape of the spade on playing cards, 
The author is of opinion that the Patella levis and Patella pellucida are 
the same shell, the one being the young state of the other. He then went 
on to describe the Fissurella nubecula, and to show that this shell has a 
serrated instead of a plain margin, and that the apex is surrounded by three 
teeth. In consequence of it having been asserted at the Meeting of the 
British Association at Plymouth that the Saxicava rugosa was not an inha- 
bitant of deep water, the author stated that he had got specimens alive in 
limestone five leagues from the land and in thirty fathoms water. Pholas 
lamellata was found also under similar circumstances in red sandstone. He 
1843. K 
