120 MINUTES OF MEETIJfGS. 



brown, oval and liollow bodies, witli a strong resemblance 

 to the pupa skins of insects, or rather to the gravid bodies 

 of many oT the female coccidce- 



Mr. Kirkpatrick stated that he liad, one year ago, pro- 

 cured from Lorain county, Oliio, a female specimen of the 

 rare black water snake, {Nerodia niger.) Four days after 

 his coming into possession of the snake, she gave birth to 

 a number of young. For twenty-four hours after birth, 

 the young were weak and languid, but after that period 

 rapidly gained strength. This snake may now be added to 

 our Ohio Fauna. 



Mr. Klippart presented a new species of Spirifer, from 

 Kelly's Island. It somewhat resembles the Spirifer trigo- 

 nalis, figured in Trimmer, Lyell and Mantell, with this 

 dillerence, in all those figured and described in the works 

 above referred to, the upi)er valve is ventricose from the 

 medial carina to the jj I eural margin; in the one presented 

 it is direct — the medial carina ibrming a summit from 

 which the two sides of the upper valve slope at an angle 

 of forty-live degrees, presenting the appearance, when 

 resting on Ihe lower valve, of the gable end of a house. 

 The length of the fossil is eighteen lines; width, twenty- 

 seven lines ; thickness, eighteen lines ; distance from medial 

 carina to pleural seam, twenty-two lines; distance from 

 hinge to ventral margin, measured along the carina on the 

 upper valve, twenty-four lines; distance from hinge to 

 ventral margin, measured along the sinus of lower valve, 

 thirty-three lines. That portion of the ventral margin 

 along the sinus of the lower valve, for the space of twelve 

 lines towards the hinge, Ibrms a right angle with the 

 medial carina of the upper valve. This sinus, in its widest 

 part, is twelve lines in width, and four in depth. The shell 

 is striated longitudinally — not so deep, however, as the S. 

 Lynx^ and the seam is slightly crenulated. 



Col. Whittlesey, of the recent Geological Corps of Ohio, 

 was at first of opinion that the shell was distorted, but Mr. 



