Institute of France. 147 



Class a memoir nearly of the same nature with the two former, 

 in which he gives the' history of a species very much neglected 

 by naturalists, although so abundant at certain seasons in the 

 Gulph of Gascony, that the fishermen of the Isle-Dieu alone 

 take upwards of 14000 annually, weighing from 30 to 80 pounds 

 each. It is the germon, or grande oreilie of the French, or 

 the ala longa of the Sardinian fishermen, [scomher aialonga^ 

 Gmelin,) so called because the principal character which di- 

 stinguishes it from the tunny {scomber thjnnus) consists of 

 pectoral fins of great length and pointed. Commerson having 

 found near Madagascar a fish which bears the same character, 

 applied to it the name of germon, and was followed by Lacepede, 

 so that the gennon of Europe is now designated more particu- 

 larly by the name of ala-longa. It remains to be shown if 

 the germon of Europe and that of Madagascar are of different 

 species : the distance makes this to be presumed ; and Geoffroi 

 Saiut-Hilaire has ascertained the fact, by comparing the second 

 drawing left by Commerson, with the description of the first 

 given by M. Noel, and a drawing left by Pere Plumier. It 

 would be desirable, however, to see this result confirmed by an 

 actual comparison of the two fishes. 



M. Cuvier has also described to the Class, a fish very little 

 known, recently found in the Gulph of Genoa, upwards of four 

 feet long, of the form of the blade of a cutlass, and remarkable 

 for an elevated crest, surmounted by a kind of long horn which 

 it has on its head, and by ventral fins excessively small, placed 

 under the pectoral fins. There existed before but one descrip- 

 tion of it very incomplete i)y the late M. Giorna, naturalist, of 

 Turin, who had given the name of lophote to the genus, and 

 had dedicated the species to M. Lacepede, as an homage which 

 all natinalists ov/e him. 



M. Huber, of Geneva, the son of the author of a most in- 

 teresting work on bees, and himself the author of a work on 

 ants, filled with most curious traits of the instinct of these little 

 animals, has presented to the Class a memoir on the singular 

 industry of a small caterpillar which he calls chenille a hamaCy 

 from the way in which it suspends itself to pass through its 

 chrysalis state. It lives in the inside of the leaves of some fruit- 

 trees, and it is in the month of August that it ceases to eat, and 

 weaves its hammock. Five hours are sufficient for constructing 

 it : two cords stretched between the curled edges of a concave 

 leaf are the chief supports: it is suspended by xilhen threads, 

 and two others fixed to the bottom of the leaf serve it as a kind 

 of anchor. It is of a cylindrical form. M. Huber, not con- 

 tented with attentively following and describing the successive 

 operations of the little architect who constructs this complicated 



K 2 edifice. 



