67 



member of the Society, on the 18th instant, aged 74; and on 

 his motion, Dr. Hugh L. Hodge was appointed to prepare an 

 obituary notice of the deceased. 



Mr. Kane announced the decease of Don Jose da Silva Lis- 

 boa, of Rio Janeiro, a member of the Society. 



Mr. Du Ponceau announced the decease of Count Miot de 

 Melito, of France, a member of the Society, which occurred 

 on the 15th of January last. 



Mr. Lea called the attention of the Society to a beautiful 

 living specimen of the Bulimus Ovatus, which he had received 

 through Mr. Stern Humphreys, from Brazil, and made some 

 remarks on its distinctive character and habits. 



Mr. Walker read a letter from Professor Forshey, of 

 Natchez, giving an account of several interesting displays of 

 meteors. 



Mr. Walker observed, that the display of the 20th of April, which 

 was noticed in Virginia in 1803, and which has been referred to 

 by MM. Arago, Quetelet. Herrick and others, was watched for by 

 Mr. Herrick in the three last years, without any remarkable result. 

 Corresponding observations were made in the present year at Cam- 

 bridge, New Haven, Philadelphia and Washington, on the 19th; the 

 20th and 21st being cloudy, from 11 o'clock till midnight; but the 

 number of meteors seen was not greater than usual. In the morning 

 of the 19th, however, a gentleman of Philadelphia, Mr. William F. 

 Kintzing, counted eight in the course of ten minutes, shortly after 

 midnight. 



At about 8 o'clock on the same night, the 18th, at Vidalia, in Louis- 

 iana, Prof. Forshey noticed an unusual number of meteors in different 

 parts of the heavens, and on tracing their paths backwards, found 

 that they traversed the Constellation Virgo. Having commenced pre- 

 cise observations at half past 8, and continued them for three hours, 

 he saw in two hours and a quarter, forty-five minutes being lost in 

 recording, sixty meteors, of which, all but five, passed within 10° 

 from the common radiant point. These meteors were very unlike 

 those of the August shower ; being chiefly without trains, and of a 

 reddish colour, few of them of the first magnitude, and the greater 

 number of the third and inferior magnitudes. Their velocities were 

 remarkably equal and gentle ; their paths short ; and their light first 

 increasing, then waning, as if they were moving on a chord to the 

 circle of visibility. Professor Forshey determined their radiant 



