326 



Prof. L. Agassiz remarked, that, during the past sumraer,' 

 he had been examining the young of many species of fish, 

 especially during the last hours of their embryonic life, or 

 after hatching ; and had found that these animals undergo 

 metamorphoses as varied and extensive as are so well known 

 in Batrachians. 



Mr. F. W. Putnam stated that different families of fishes 

 diifer very much as to the time of appearance of the scales 

 in the young, details in regard to which he would give on 

 some future occasion. 



Mr. Alex. Agassiz made a detailed communication upon 

 the transformation of the young in Echinoderms, showing 

 how the young star-fish is developed upon the water-tubes. 

 The differences in the modes of development in the different 

 orders were pointed out, as well as the relation which the 

 gradation of the structure in these animals bore to the dif- 

 ferent aspects assumed by the young, after the pi'eparatory 

 framework had been dissolved by the larva. 



Dr. J. C. White exhibited to the Society two albino chil- 

 dren. 



Prof. Agassiz announced a donation to the cabinet of the 

 Society, from the Museum of Comparative Zoology, of a col- 

 lection of fishes, containing 345 specimens, representing 108 

 sjDecies, all determined and labelled by Mr. Putnam. 



Dr. Francis H. Brown noticed the capture off Saco, Me., 

 in September last, of a specimen of Sphargis coriacea. 



The dimensions, according to Mr. G. W. Jebbs, are as fol- 

 lows : Length, eight feet ; extremes, from end of flippers, ten 

 feet; neck, three feet nine inches; girth, seven feet eleven inch- 

 es; weight, 1,280 lbs. The occurrence of but three others on 

 our coast had fallen under his notice : one, described by Dr. 

 Storer, taken in Massachusetts Bay in 1824, braught to Boston 

 and purchased by the proprietors of the ISTew-England Mu- 

 seum ; a second, noticed by Holbrook as caught in Chesa- 

 peake Bay in 1840; and the third, caught near Cape Cod in 

 1848, and now in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at 

 Cambridge. Prof Agassiz, in his "Contributions," caii make 



