288 ACCOUNT OF A RIBBON FISH 
posed to the sun or to the air. So little is known of the action of 
electric and magnetic streams, in connection with the phenome- 
na of vegetation, that to refer what we cannot otherwise explain 
to their agency, with any degree of positiveness, would be ab- 
surd. Yet I think it more than probable that the ordinary 
course of the sap must have suffered some temporary and partial 
interruption or derangement, from some powerful, though ob- 
scure, cause, before such an unequal contraction of the woody 
tissue could occur, as to rend its whole substance so extensively. 
I hope, on some future occasion, to exhibit before our Club, cross 
sections from the stem of one of the trees, which I intend to fell, 
to obtain them, whilst its fellow shall live on. 
It is probable that in the spruce forests of Switzerland and 
Scandinavia, where the summers are both hotter than ours, and 
electricity often more active, such instances of living trees open- 
ing in fissures, may be well known. They may indeed be fami- 
liar to the owners of large resinous woodlands in our own country. 
Ifso, perhaps we shall receive authentic information on a subject 
of considerable interest. 
Oct. 5) 1849. 
XI.—Account of a Ribbon Fish (Gymnetrus) taken off the Coast 
of Northumberland. By Ausany Hancoox and Dennis Emu- 
BLETON, M. D., Lecturer on Anatomy and Physiology, in the 
Medical School of Newcastle upon Tyne.* 
[Read at the Anniversary Meeting, April 21, 1849.] 
Qn the 26th of March, 1849, a fine specimen of a species of 
Gymnetrus, or Ribbon Fish, was captured by Bartholomew Tay- 
* By the kindness of R. Taylor, Esq., F'. L. S., the Club has been supplied 
with copies of the plates which illustrated this paper in the Annals and Maga- 
zine of Natural History for July, 1849. 
