1 32 Zoological Proceedings of Societies . 



oil iato the maternal vessels, while their irritability was yet active. 

 Experiments were consequently instituted. From their result 

 Dr. W. is disposed to conclude that the maternal and foetal sys- 

 tems in the canine species, are parts only of a common uninter- 

 rupted sanguiferous system. From analogy, Dr. W. also infers 

 the communication between parent and foetus to be similar in all 

 viviparous animals ; and remarks that if his conclusion and infer- 

 ence can be admitted, we shall have reason to doubt the validity 

 of the doctrine of the maternal-foetal circulation as taught by Dr. 

 Harvey, together with its modern superstructure. For that if his, 

 Dr. Ws, experiments and deductions be correct, we can no longer 

 subscribe to the hypothesis of there being two independent san- 

 guiferous circulations in the impregnated state, nor to that of the 

 placenta being an organ of respiration or aeration. 



Dr. J. R. Johnson, F.R.S. communicated Some further obser- 

 vations on the genus Planaria; in which he stated that Mr. 

 Dalyell of Edinburgh, in a work on the Planarice^ having asserted 

 that an individual of P. cornuta accidentally wounded near the 

 head, produced a new head from the incision, he conceived that 

 the verification of so curious a fact would be interesting to the 

 Royal Society; and accordingly took one hundred of the animals, 

 and made an incision in the side of each ; but one of them how- 

 ever produced the new head : in the greater number the wound 

 healed, and in some, preternatural excrescences only were pro- 

 duced. Dr. J. proceeded to detail some further remarks on the 

 reproductive faculties of the Planarice^ and to describe P. nigra, 

 of which a drawing was annexed. It has the abdominal probos- 

 cis like the others. 



March 10. — J. H. Green, Esq. Professor of Comparative Anatomy 

 to the Royal College of Surgeons of Loudon, was admitted a Fel- 

 low of the Society. 



March 17. — The name of Dr. J. Richardson was ordered to be 

 inserted in the printed lists of the Royal Society; and the Society 

 for promoting Animal Chemistry communicated a paper by Sir E. 

 Home, V.P.R.S. entitled Observations on the Influence of the 

 Nerves and Ganglions in producing Animal Heat. 



March 24. — Major C. Hamilton Smith, A.L.S. was admitted 

 a Fellow of the Society. 



