273 



page 62, in an orchard, on the 24th of April. Mr. Ord confirmed this state- 

 ment, by declaring to the Society, that he himself was with Wilson on the 

 day in question ; that he saw and examined the specimen ; and that Wilson 

 assured him it was entirely new to him. Wilson was then residing at the 

 Bartram Botanic Garden, near Philadelphia. 



Mr. Ord farther read to the Society a letter addressed to him by the artist, 

 Mr. Lawson, who engraved the plate in which the Small-headed Flycatcher 

 is figured. This gentleman affirms, that all the plates, which he engraved for 

 the American Ornithology, were from Wilson's own drawings; and that with 

 respect to the plate in which the Small-headed Flycatcher appears, specimens 

 of all the birds there represented accompanied the drawings; and he, after 

 getting his outline, worked from them. Mr. Ord laid before the Society a 

 proof of the etching of this plate, and remarked, that from the minuteness of 

 the details, the point of the engraver had evidently a greater share in produ- 

 cing the desired result, than even the pencil of the ornithologist. 



Mr. Lea, from the Publication Committee, reported, that 

 the first part of the 7th volume of the Transactions of the So- 

 ciety was completed, and presented a copy thereof for the in- 

 spection of the members. 



Mr. Vaughan stated, that agreeably to the instructions of the 

 Society, he had purchased the Anamitic and Latin, and Latin 

 and Anamitic Dictionaries, lately published by the Right 

 Reverend Father Taberd, Bishop of Isauropolis, and Vicar 

 General of Cochin China; in two volumes, 4to. Serampore, 

 1838. (See Proceedings of July 3.) 



Dr. Hays made an oral communication relative to the opera- 

 tion recently devised for squinting, and to its effects in modi- 

 fying the adjusting power of the eye for near and distant 

 objects. 



Dr. Hays stated, that certain phenomena which he had observed 

 in one of the cases in which he had divided the internal rectus mus- 

 cle, for the cure of squinting, seemed to favour the theory of the ad- 

 justment, being made by an alteration in the form of the eye, under 

 the conjoint action of the four recti muscles ; a theory rejected by the 

 best physiologists of the day. 



The case, the details of which Dr. Hays related, was that of a 

 gentleman thirty-six years of age, who had squinted with his left eye 

 since the age of five years. Both the eyes were presbyopic ; the left, 

 however, was most so, and required for distinct vision a glass three 

 Nos. higher than the other eye ; the respective Nos. being 1 1 and 

 14. Vision with the left eye, even by the aid of a glass, was not 

 c 



