456 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



REPTILIA. 



Adders swallowing their Young.— I think your correspondent, Mr. 

 Mansel Pleydell, assumes on insufficient evidence that female Adders are 

 provided with a cavity separate from the stomach for the reception of their 

 youug. Au incident came under my own observation, and was duly 

 reported in ' The Zoologist ' for June, 1889, of an Adder rejecting a Lizard 

 alive and uninjured, at least twenty-four hours after swallowing it. Having 

 been taken for food, the Lizard must have been in the Viper's stomach all 

 that time. — R. H. Ramsbotham (Monkmoor, Shrewsbury). 



[If we mistake not, it has been ascertained by experiment that the 

 gastric fluid acts much more slowly upon living tissue than upon dead 

 prey. If so, the temporary retention of young Adders in the stomach of the 

 parent would not necessarily be fatal to them, as has been supposed. See 

 Putnam, ' American Naturalist,' vol. ii. p. 133. — Ed.] 



SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 



Linnean Society of London. 



November 1th, 1895. — Mr. C. B. Clarke, F.R.S., President, in the chair. 



Mr. George Massee was admitted a Fellow of the Society. 



Several volumes of Cryptogamic exsiccata recently received from 

 Madame Weddell as a bequest from her late husband, a Foreign Member 

 of the Society, were shown, and some remarks made thereon by the 

 Botauical Secretary. 



A portrait of the French naturalist Guillaume Rondelet, Professor of 

 Anatomy and Chancellor of the University of Montpellier, 1545, recently 

 presented to the Society by Dr. H. Woodward, was exhibited by the 

 Zoological Secretary, who gave an account of his life and work, supple- 

 mented by remarks from the President. 



Mr. C. T. Druery exhibited and made remarks on a Scolopendrium 

 raised by Mr. E. J. Lowe, bearing archegonia and antheridia upon the 

 fronds, constituting a more advanced phase of apospory than any previously 

 noted. Some additional remarks were made by Mr. George Murray. 



Dr. Maxwell T. Masters exhibited specimens of the fruit of Pyrus sorbus, 

 Aberia cajfra, and small fruits of Cocos australis, from the gardens of 

 Mr. Thomas Hanbury at La Mortola, Mentone, and some large fruits of 

 Cocos australis from Naudin's garden at Antibes, Alpes Maritimes. 



Mr. J. E. Harting exhibited a specimen of the American Yellow-billed 

 Cuckoo, Cuculus americanus, which had been picked up dead in a garden at 

 Bndport, Dorsetshire, on Oct. 5th, as recorded in 'The Zoologist' for 

 October (p. 376), and gave some account of the wanderings aud previous 

 occurrence of this species in the British Islands. As showing the means 



