140 Cotswoid Naturalists^ Club. 



lithographic drawings, illustrative of the species described in his 

 * History of the Birds of Jamaica.' The figures will be drawn on the 

 stone by the author himself, partly from original drawings and partly 

 from preserved specimens, with the advantage of his own notes and 

 personal knowledge of attitudes, &c. ; and they will be very carefully 

 coloured. The number of species proposed to be illustrated amounts 

 to about a hundred and twenty ; of which more than one-half are not 

 figured in English works, worthy of reference, while a considerable 

 number are new to science. 



The work is to be issued monthly, and is not to exceed the extent 

 of thirty numbers. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



At a Meeting of the Cotswoid Naturalists' Club, held at Rodbo- 

 rough Common, May 18th, 1847, Dr. Wright of Cheltenham exhi- 

 bited a beautiful preparation of the Geophilus longicornis. Leach, in 

 which he had observed the veneniferous glands of that Myriapod. 

 He had found no description of these glands in any of the great 

 authorities on the structure of the articulate animals whom he had 

 consulted, from which he inferred that these bodies had hitherto 

 escaped observation. 



Dr. Wright observed that the salivary glands in the vertebrate 

 animals are in general absent in those classes and tribes which live 

 habitually in water. In Fishes they are absent, an increased mucous 

 secretion being poured into the mouth by a great development of 

 the buccal follicles. In Batrachia distinct glands are absent, a com- 

 pensative secretion being supplied by the mucous glands of the 

 mouth and tongue. In the Cetacea they exist only in a rudimentary 

 state. Hence the conclusion that animals that seize their prey in 

 the water and swallow it without mastication have no necessity for 

 saliva as a preliminary solvent for the digestive process, the gastric 

 juice in these animals being sufficient to complete the chemical 

 changes in the stomach. In the invertebrate classes salivary glands 

 are absent in all the Radiata, nor do we observe these bodies in 

 the Tunicated or Acephalous Mollusca ; but they are found in the 

 Gasteropoda and Cephalopoda ; they are absent in the Entozoa, but 

 exist in a rudimental state in the Annelida and Crustacea. In all 

 the classes of the Articulata that respire air, as Myriapoda, Insecta 

 and Arachnida, salivary vessels can be demonstrated : these organs 

 may be subdivided into simple and compound glands. 



A. When the secretion supplied is a fluid concerned in the di- 

 gestive process, the secreting organ is a simple tube with its distal 

 extremity closed. 



B. When the secretion supplied is used for the destruction of 

 prey, the secreting organ is a compound body or gland. 



In the majority of Insecta the salivary vessels are simple ramified 

 tubes that open into the gullet, but in Hemiptera simple tubes and 



