Zoological Society. 51 



ice docks, the operations of tracking and towing, &c., are clearly 

 explained, and enable the reader to realize the peculiar character- 

 istics which attend these voyages in the icy seas. A few notes on 

 natural history are interspersed, but the author describes a whaling 

 voyage as particularly unfavourable to the pursuits of the naturalist, 

 very few opportunities of observation being afforded to him, even 

 where, as in his own case, the master of the ship affords all the faci- 

 lities in his power. 



We can recommend this book as an exceedingly pleasant and read- 

 able little volume, and take our leave of it with hearty wishes for the 

 success of the author in his present, second search. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



ZOOLOGICAL. SOCIETY. 



May 22, 1849.— Harpur Gamble, Esq., M.D., in the Chair. 

 Monograph of the Family Limnadiad^, a family of Ento- 



MOSTRACOUS CrUSTACEA. By W. BaIRD, M.D., F.L.S. ETC. 



Jean Frederic Hermann, in his ' Memoire Apterologique,' pubhshed 

 at Strasbourg in 1804, described and figured an Entomostracous crus- 

 tacean, which from its resemblance to the genus Daphnia of JNIiiller 

 and its large size, he called Daphnia gigas. About thirty years pre- 

 vious to that time, he tells us, his father discovered a number of these 

 interesting little animals in a deep ditch near Strasbourg filled with clear 

 rain-water and well-stocked with weeds. Struck with their beauty he 

 collected several dozens of specimens, and placing them in a vessel full 

 of water less pure than that wliich the ditch contained, took them 

 home. By the time he reached his house however they were all dead 

 but one, and he only succeeded in preserving two specimens in spirits 

 of wine. Linnaeus had long before that described a species of Mono- 

 culus in his 'Fauna Suecica,' under the name oi Monoculus lenticu- 

 laris, found in Finland. His description is very brief, and Her- 

 mann (pere) considering it probable that his animals might be iden- 

 tical with the species described by Limiiseus, preserved the shells or 

 bucklers of the little creatures which had died, and distributed them 

 among his friends and correspondents. He sent some more particu- 

 larly to the celebrated Miiller, at that time engaged in working out 

 the history of the Entomostraca, and entreated him and his other 

 friends to inform him if they considered the specimens he had sent 

 to be identical with the Monoculus lenticularis of Linnaeus. Miiller 

 and his other correspondents all replied that they were not able to 

 inform him, as they did not know Linnaeus' s insect — and from that 

 time up to the period at which the younger Hermann's ' Memoire 

 Apterologique ' was published, neither father nor son had ever again 

 succeeded in finding these animals. Nothing farther seems to have 

 been known of any species belonging to the family till M. Adolphe 

 Brongniart in 1820, in the sixth volume of the ' Memoires du Museum 

 d'Histoire Naturelle,' published a description of an animal found by 

 him in a pool of fresh water at Fontainebleau, which he considered (I 



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