^^ Miscellaneous. 



" After some little time, how long I cannot now say, I examined them 

 to see if they were thawed sufficiently for dressing, and to my surprise, 

 I found some of them as lively as when sporting in their native brooks. 

 I called on others to view them, who had seen them while they were 

 frozen. To them also it appeared almost incredible, but we were con- 

 strained to believe our own eyes and senses. 



*' I think those fish were perch that came to life after (I cannot say 

 death, but) freezing. 



" In the spring, I remark, we set the eel-pot with its mouth down 

 stream, as then the fish are running from the pond up stream. — Sil- 

 limaris American Journal for July 1850. 



" Yours respectfully. Paraclete Skinner." 



Woodstock, Conn., Dec. 1849. 



NEW BIRD FROM NEW ZEALAND. 



Dr. Mantell has just received from his eldest son, Mr. Walter 

 Mantell, of New Zealand, the skin of a bird hitherto supposed both 

 by the natives and European colonists to be extinct. It is a large 

 species of Rail or Porphyrio, called '^Moho'' and "Tdkehe" by the 

 New Zealanders, who state that it was formerly abundant and con- 

 temporaneous with the Moa, but as not an individual had been seen 

 for many years, the race was thought to have been extirpated by the 

 wild cats and dogs. A skull and other bones discovered by Mr. Walter 

 Mantell with the remains of the Dinornis, &c, in the bone-bed at 

 Waingongoro, and described by Professor Owen as Notornis Man- 

 telli (Zool. Trans, vol. iii.), belong to this species. This bird is 

 about 2 feet high, of a rich dark purple colour, with red beaks and 

 legs. It was caught by dogs, its trail having been observed on the 

 snow, in a gully behind Resolution Island, at the south-western ex- 

 tremity of the Middle Island of New Zealand. This unique example 

 of a bird, perhaps the last of its race, is alike interesting to the orni- 

 thologist and palaeontologist ; Dr. Mantell has placed it in the hands 

 of our eminent ornithologist Mr. Gould to figure and describe. A fine 

 specimen of that very rare bird the Apteryx Owenii, and of other ra- 

 pidly diminishing forms, together with some highly interesting recent 

 and fossil shells, accompanied this valuable addition to the fauna of 

 our Antipodes. Mr. Walter Mantell, when the ** Woodstock " left 

 Wellington, was about to depart on another exploration of the bone- 

 deposits, in the hope of discovering other and more perfect skulls 

 of the Moa than have hitherto been obtained. 



ON THE ANIMAL OF GEOMELANIA. BY A. ADAMS, F.L.S. 



An examination of the animal of Geomelania Jamaicensis, Pfeiffer 

 (which the kindness of Mr. Cuming has allowed me to make), shows 

 it to belong to the family of Looping-Snails, Truncatellidce of Gray ; 

 in fact, it differs in no respect from the animal of Truncal ella. 



The tentacles are short, conical and depressed, with the eyes large, 

 black, and sessile on the middle of the upper surface of their base ; 

 the head terminates anteriorly in a broad, flattened bilobate proboscis, 

 as long as the tentacles ; and the foot is short, depressed, and divided 

 by a deep groove from the head, bearing on its upper hind surface a 



