Scientific Intelligence. — Zoology. 395 



16. Cuttle-Jish Fishery. — A curious account has been pub- 

 lishedijy M. Pilaje, of the uncommon and important Cuttle- 

 fish (Sepia) fishery on the coast of Newfoundland. It is the 

 Loligo piscatorum of authors. It occurs in vast abundance, but 

 at different times, on different coasts ; for example, at St Pierre 

 in July, on the southern coasts of Newfoundland only in Au- 

 gust, and in Bonne Bay first in September. Its vast shoals 

 present a curious appearance, by their strongly twisted compact 

 form. When they approach, hundreds of vessels are ready for 

 their capture. A cylindrical polished piece of lead, of which 

 one end runs into a number of hooks, is used as a bait. When 

 it occurs in great numbers, a person can take a thousand in the 

 space of an hour. At this season of the year, the sea on the 

 coast of St Pierre is covered with from 400 to 500 sail of Eng- 

 lish and French ships engaged in the Cuttle-fish fishery. The 

 Cuttle-fish is sometimes eaten, but the proper object of their 

 capture is the using them afterwards as bait in the taking of the 

 cod and other fishes that afterwards appear on the coast. In 

 Mr Cormack's paper in vol. i. p. 37, of Edinburgh New Philo- 

 sophical Journal, the reader will find an interesting account of 

 the Cuttle-fish as a bait in the cod-fishery of Newfoundland. 



17. Anatifera Vitrea or Vitreous Barnacle. — This species, a 

 native of the Mediterranean, is not, hke the others, fixed, on the 

 contrary, is a free pelagian molluscous animal. It suspends it^ 

 self, like the lanthina, at the surface of the water by means of 

 white translucent air-vesicles. These vesicles are connected 

 with the fleshy pedicle ; by their means the animal floats freely 

 on the surface of the water, but it can also sink itself at plea- 

 sure. 



18. Mortality among Leeches.— '^\\3ii atmospheric changes 

 have a remarkable influence upon leeches, is a well established 

 fact. In 1825, M. Derheims of St Omer, ascribes the almost 

 sudden death of them at the approach of, or during storms, to 

 the coagulation of the blood of these creatures, caused by the 

 impression of the atmospherical electricity. This opinion, which 

 at that time was the result of theory, he confirmed, in the month 

 of March last, by direct experiment. 



19- BclcmnHe.'i. — Raspail, who enumerates 250 species of this 

 genus, maintains that they are Jiot sliells of animal.^ but cuia- 



