SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 115 
lying on its flat valve, in which position (often with the umbo buried in the 
soft soil) it is comparatively free from disturbance by the action of the 
restless sea. Another advantage resulting from this position may be that 
particles of sand or mud which would be retained in the concavity of the 
rounded shell, to the injury of the delicate mantle and branchie, are readily 
swept away from the flat surface of the right valve. Larval Oysters often 
become attached singly to fragments of shell or very small stones. When 
these Oysters have grown somewhat larger than the substance to which 
they are fastened they are practically free, and become turned over as soon 
as the left valve has assumed sufficient convexity. When an Oyster is 
attached to a stone sufficiently heavy to moor it in its bed in its normal 
position, and is thus allowed to grow to maturity, the flat upper valve will 
be found covered with the rich growth of zoophytes, sponges, and algae 
which Mr. Cunningham rightly says are ordinarily found only on the convex 
valves of Oysters brought up by the dredge. I have an illustration of 
this in a beautiful specimen now in my aquarium.— Srperr SaunpERs 
(Whitstable). 
SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES, 
Linnean Society or Lonpon. 
January 25, 1886.—Witi1aMm Carrutuers, F.R.S., Vice-President, 
in the chair. 
Dr. T. Spencer Cobbold read a paper ‘On Strongylus Amei and its 
affinities. This diminutive maw-worm, obtained from the stomach of a 
donkey, possesses interest, inasmuch as its structural characters closely 
correspond with those of the Entozoon (Strongylus Douglasii, Cobb.), 
infesting the proventriculus of the ostrich. It also shows affinity with the 
grouse strongyle (S. pergracilis), and with the stomach-worm (8. contortus) 
of lambs; while its peculiarities throw light upon other questions of 
morphology, especially its relations to the singular maw-worm (Simondsia 
paradoxa, Cobb.) of the hog. 
February 4, 1886.—Sir Joun Lussock, Bart., F.R.S., M.P., President, 
in the chair. 
Mr. James Dallas exhibited a specimen 6f the Glossy Ibis, [bis 
Jaleinellus, Liun., which was purchased last spring from Mr. James H. Clyde- 
of Bradworthy Vicarage, near Holsworthy, Devon, in whose possession, or 
that of his family, it had been from the time it was killed in the neigh- 
bourhood. It is mentioned by Morris, in his ‘ British Birds’ (vol.iv. p. 172), 
as follows:—‘‘In the ‘ Western Times’ of October 11th, 1851, it was 
