128 



September 22, 1835. 

 William Yarrell, Esq,, in the Chair. 



Some extracts were read from a Letter addressed to the Secre- 

 tary by M. F. Cuvier, For. Memb. Z. S., and dated Paris, Septem- 

 ber 15, 1835. Among other zoological notices contained in it were 

 some remarks on the dentary systems of the three approximating 

 genera of Herbivorous Rodentia, Ctenomys, Blainv., Octodon, Benn., 

 and Pcephagomys, F. Cuv. M. F. Cuvier states that the teeth of the 

 former are destitute of true roots. 



A Letter was read, addressed to the Secretary by J. B. Harvey, 

 Esq., Corr. Memb. Z.S., and dated Teignmouth, September 9, 

 J 835. It accompanied some dried specimens of the animal of Ser- 

 pula tubularia of Dr, Turton, which were forwarded by the writer 

 with the view of demonstrating that the Patella tricornis, Turt., is in 

 reality an appendage to that animal, serving as an operculum to its 

 shelly tube — a fact which, subsequently to his description of the 

 supposed new species of Patella, Dr. Turton appears himself to have 

 suspected. The appendage described as the Pat. tricornis is in 

 reality the covering of the dilated extremity of the single developed 

 tentaculum in the Serpulidous animal forming the shell characterized 

 by Dr. Turton as the Serp. tubularia : a similar covering is met with 

 in the animals of all the species of Vermilia, Lam., and Galeolaria, 

 Ej. ; but not in those of the genus Serpula as restricted by Lamarck. 



Mr. Harvey states that " Two days ago an industrious young 

 naturalist, Mr. H. Glossop, of Isleworth, who has accompanied me 

 on many dredging excursions, noticed an unusual, as he thought, 

 horny substance upon the worm of a Serpula tubularia, which was 

 adhering to a shell in salt water, and on examination it proved to be 

 the Patella tricornis of Dr. Turton. We have since pulled out and 

 examined above a hundred of these Serpulce, all living specimens, 

 and have found an operculum upon each of them. I am going to sea 

 again on Saturday, and in a iew days it is my intention to send you 

 several living specimens, that you ma}' satisfy yourself and the So- 

 ciety on this subject : I will forward them by the mail, with a bottle 

 of sea-water in the basket, that you may preserve them alive for a 

 day or two." 



Mr. Bennett called the attention of the Meeting to a specimen of 

 a Crocodile which he had regarded, while it was living in the Soci- 

 ety's Gardens, as referrible, on account of the length of its head and 

 the extent of the shielding at the back of its neck, to the Crocodibis 



