264 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
naturally supposed that the rest are thriving. The first lot that were turned 
out will be three years old in April, when they are expected to begin to 
begin to breed. Any really palatable addition to the scanty list of fish 
used by English cooks will be a boon, and the result of Lord Exeter's 
experiment will be watched with considerable interest. 
Porsonous Quatities or SrarFisH.—Mr. Parker's note (ante p. 214) 
reminds me that when staying in one of our south-coast fishing towns, 
a year or two ago, we complained of the noise made each night by our 
neighbours’ cats. Our landlord made very short work of the nuisance, by 
simply gathering and cutting up some common “ Five-fingers” Starfish, and 
having fried them in dripping the pieces were judiciously placed where they 
might be found by our enemies. In the course of a few days dead cats 
were more numerous than living ones in that neighbourhood.—Joun 'T. 
CarrinGton (Royal Aquarium, Westminster). 
PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 
ZootocicaL Society oF Lonpon. 
May 3, 1881.—Prof. W. H. Frower, LL.D., F.R.S., President, in 
the chair. 
Prof. F. Jeffrey Bell read the first of a series of papers on the systematic 
arrangement of the Asteroidea. In the present communication the author 
directed attention to the large number—more than eighty—of described 
species of the genus Asterias, the subdivision of which had never yet been 
attempted. After a list of the species, with reference to one description of 
each, and a list of the synonyms, he proceeded to describe and make use 
of certain characters as an aid in the classification of the species; the 
number of rays, of madreporiform plates, and of ambulacral spines forming 
the more important, and the form and character of the spines the less 
important points. The author then proposed a mode of formulating results 
by the use of certain symbols; and concluded by describing five new 
species. 
A communication was read from Dr. M. Watson, containing some 
observations on the anatomy of the generative organs of the Spotted Hyena, 
in continuation of a previous paper on the same subject. 
Mr. Oldfield Thomas read a memoir on the Indian species of the genus 
Mus. The present paper was an attempt to clear up the existing confusion 
in the synonymy of the Indian species of this genus, of which the author 
recognised about nineteen as valid. 
