72 REPORT—1852. : 
ning of that carriage. At length, when it could no longer be dispensed with, the car- 
riage was attached toa train, and sent to Frankfort-on-the- Maine, distant between 
thirty and forty English miles. At Frankfort it remained for six-and-thirty hours, and 
was then brought back to Giessen ; from whence it went to Ldllar, distant four or five 
English miles, and subsequently again came back to Giessen, having been kept awhile 
at Lollar; so that four days and three nights elapsed between the bringing of the car- 
riage into its use and its last return to Giessen. Stephanij, now finding the nest not 
to have been abandoned by the parent birds, and to contain young ones, which he 
describes as feathered, removed it from the carriage to a secure place of rest which 
he had prepared, saw the parent birds visit it, and visited it from time to time himself, 
until at first three and then the other two young birds had flown ; none remaining at 
the end of four or five days. Now, while the carriage was travelling, where were the 
parent birds? It will hardly be said that they remained at Giessen awaiting its return, 
having to examine by night as well as by day hundreds of passing carriages in order 
to recognise it; the young birds in their nests quietly awaiting food (!) There seems 
little doubt that, adhering to the nest, one, at least, of the parent birds travelled with 
the train. Nor, when it is remembered how gently and how slowly an enormous 
Tailway carriage is pushed into connection with a train,—how gradually a train is 
brought into full speed, and how equable the movements are upon a railway,—will it 
appear incredible that at such a time a parent bird should continue with its nest, that 
nest being quite concealed, and containing young. Not until after the above was 
written did the author of this communication become acquainted with the important 
fact, that while the carriage in question was at Frankfort, as well as during its short 
stay at Friedeberg, on the way to Frankfort, the conductor of the train saw a red-tailed 
bird constantly flying from and to the part where the nest was situated in that parti- 
eae carriage. Is further evidence required that a parent bird did indeed travel with 
the train? 

Zoological Notices. By the Princz or CaANino. 
The Prince exhibited a Ray which would have tempted many a naturalist of our 
day to constitute a new genus, and perhaps even a new family ; yet itis only a mon- 
strosity of the common Trygon pastinaca, or to speak more properly, a specimen in 
which the transitorial forms of the embryo have become permanent. A teratologist 
would claim the analogy of this our monstrosity to the bifida spina, or to the leporine 
lip, which are nothing but normal and transitorial conditions in course of formation. 
It would be easy with the fish before him, for the anatomist to prove,—J], the 
embryonal changes of the Trygon and the Raiide; 2, their similarity and con- 
sequent superiority in the scale to the Squalide, the proof of which has been a 
desideratum in our science; whilst the greater development of the nervous system 
proves these cartilaginous fishes higher organized than the osseous ones generally 
placed ahead of them. ' 
The Prince of Canino also drew attention to three species of Bulweria to be men- 
tioned: B.columbina, a second Smithian species from the Cape, and a new one from 
the Isle of Bourbon; healso noticed a new Thalassidroma, which he calls Procellaria 
thetis, from the Gallapagos, similar to pelagica, but even smaller, without the whitish 
alar band, and with upper tail-coverts white to the tips, as in Pr. Wilsonii and 
others, not black-tipped as in the pelagica. 
Remarks on the Distribution and Habits of Echinus lividus. 
By Professor Dickxiz, M.D. 
This interesting species is well known on the west coast of Ireland; Bundoran 
is the most northern locality recorded in Professor E. Forbes’s work on the Echino- 
dermata; it has, however, a more extensive range. Mr. Hyndman observed it at 
Tory Island ; it has been found by the Rev. Mr. Gallagher in the Bay of Dunfanaghy, 
and in July last 1 saw it at Malin Head, county Donegal. It may possibly occur 
on the east coast of Ireland, since I found a specimen cast up at Carrickfergus, 
Belfast Bay. This species has the power of forming nest-like cavities in rocks of 
moderate hardness; these are sufficiently deep to protect about two-thirds of the 
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