XCIII 



MONDAY, JANUARY 9. Regular meeting. 



Vice President Goodell in the chair. 

 Letters were read from : 



E. S. Atwood of Salem; James S. Tallant of Concord, X. H., ac- 

 cepting membership : J. W. Young- of Worcester, relating to the pub- 

 lications : L. C. Draper, Sec'y Wisconsin Historical Society ; E. T. 

 Cresson, Sec'y, Entomological Society of Philadelphia; W. H. Ball of 

 Chicago, 111. ; J. E. Arnold, Libr., Worcester Society of Natural His- 

 tory ; W. C. H. Waddell of the American Geogr. and Statistical So- 

 ciety ; B. Westermann, & Co. ; James E. Oliver of Lynn ;' Waldo Hig- 

 ginson of Boston, on Business. 



F. W. Putnam exhibited several colored drawings by 

 Dr. J. Bernard Gilpin of Halifax, N. S. 



One of these was a winter scene, representing a moose 

 feeding on the tender twigs of a young tree which it had 

 pushed over for the purpose, by straddling the tree with 

 its fore legs, bearing on it with its chest. Another draw- 

 ing was probably that of an undescribed species of Trout 

 from Nova Scotia. The remaining were figures of the 

 " Nurse" or " Sleeper Shark," Somniosus brevipinna Le Su., 

 taken from a specimen captured in seventy fathoms of 

 water on Sambro Banks, and brought to Halifax in the 

 winter of 1862-3. The specimen was eleven feet three 

 inches in length. In the manuscript accompanying the 

 drawings, Dr. Gilpin describes the stomach, small and large 

 intestines of this shark as being formed of one large sim- 

 ple gut from the mouth to the anus, with hardly percepti- 

 ble differences in the various parts. He also mentions 

 that there was a single coecal appendage. This shark is 

 said to inhabit deep water, never appearing on the surface, 

 and its habits are so sluggish as to allow of its being often 

 captured with a cod line. The fishermen speak of it as vo- 

 racious, and, at some seasons, troublesome about their 

 nets. Dr. Gilpin also remarks upon the inaccuracy of the 

 published figures, of this species, by Le Sueur, DeKay and 

 Yarrell. 



Mr. Putnam spoke of the importance and great value of 

 such figures and observations as those made by Dr. Gilpin, 

 and called attention to the articles on the habits of the 



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