difficulties attending an examination of the euiiy develop- 

 ment of the Natica, 



Mr. F. W. Putnam of Salem, said he had found the rule 

 spoken of to apply to toads, and Mr. A. E. Vekrill of Cam- 

 bridge, spoke ot his investigations in regard to a species 

 of the salamander. 



Prof. William Russell of Andover, being called upon, 

 said his investigations in science were in a different direc- 

 tion — being the application of aesthetics to the cultivation of 

 the voice. Upon repeated urging, he came upon the plat- 

 form and delivered a beautiful poetic apostrophe to the Su- 

 preme Being, having first, in imagination, taken his hearers 

 to the grand old woods. 



Mr. J. M. Ives ol Salem, spoke of the habits of that sin- 

 gular and interesting bird, the republican or cliff swallow, 

 whose nests are found so often under the eaves of buildings. 

 He mentioned instances of almost human display oi reason 

 exhibited by birds in the care of their young. 



Prof. Russell related anecdotes of birds, and the curious 

 nests which they sometimes huild, showing that they do de- 

 viate from their established habits, under some circum- 

 stances, notwithstanding the assertion of certain naturalists 

 that they do not — one oi a golden robin which had appro- 

 priated a child's stocking and ingeniously constructed it into 

 a nest, and another of a bird which appropriated a lady's 

 white collar, worth five dollars, for the same purpose. He 

 thought they were governed by instinct more than by fixed 

 habits. 



Allusion having been made, in some of these anecdotes, to 



