1838.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 465 



near Jeypore.' The skin unquestionably belonged to an animal closely allied 

 in its habits to the mole, with a similar fur but of mouse grey color, and with a 

 minute flat naked tail scarcely projecting above the fur, and having a row of stiff 

 hairs on its edge. 



" Unfortunately wehave not the skull nor even the fore feet of this animal two 



most essential parts, but the forms of the skin together with that of a single hind 

 foot, the only one attached to it, seem to refer it to the genus Chrysochloris or 

 that to which the Cape of Good Hope mole belongs as well as the golden mole. 

 The hind foot of the Assam animal is naked and flat, bearing a near resemblance 

 to the human hand, with long nails, hollow below, narrow, and slightly pointed at 

 their extremities." 



Dr. McClelland made a further communication on the subject of two 

 small fish from a hot spring at Pooree. 



'* I may notice another point of Zoological interest for which I am indebted 

 to Dr. Goodeve who has favoured me with two specimens of the fish found by 

 Mr. Cumberland to live in a hot spring at Pooree, the temperature of which, 

 is 112° Fahr. The subject was mentioned by Dr. Goodeve at the last meeting 

 of the Medical Society, but as we hear much more extraordinary things of fishes 

 than this it excited but little interest. Our Secretary Mr. J. Prinsep for instance 

 found one in his pluviometer that must have descended from the clouds. Hum- 

 boldt and Bonpland found fishes thrown up alive from the bottom of a volcano 

 in the course of its explosions along with water and heated vapour only two degrees 

 under the boiling point ; had this observation been made on the top of Chim- 

 oorazo the boiling point might have b*en as low as the temperature of the hot 

 spring at Pooree, but Garrell removes all uncertainty by stating the temperature 

 to have been 210 Q Fahr. and it was stated at the Medical Society by Dr. O'- 

 Shaughnessy, on the authority of a writer in Blackwood, that fish live comfortably 

 in the Geysers — the boiling springs of Iceland, whose waters we should recollect 

 though only boiling at the surface, are supposed at greater depths to be suffi- 

 ciently hot to dissolve flint and hold it in solution. 



" On the other hand the sucking carp, a species said to be remarkably tenaceous 

 of life, has been found by Dr. Richardson frozen in the ice of the northera 

 seas, apparently dead, but when the ice is thawed the fish avails itself of its liberty 

 as if nothing had happened to it. A similar fact has also been observed by Mr. 

 Jrsse with reference to the gold-fish, and in northern parts of Europe Mr. 

 Garrell informs us that perch and eels are conveniently transported in a frozen 

 state from place to place without destroying life. 



V With such an utter defiance of temperature as these facts prove the living 

 principle in fishes to be capable of exercising, there is nothing wonderful in our 

 finding fish in the hot spring at Pooree; there is this interest however in it, that 

 the fish belongs to a new genus of which we have some 10 or 12 species in India 

 all carnivorous, so that its presence implies the existence of other living things 

 in the hot spring in addition to its own kind," 



The Secretary ventured to add to the foregoing a circumstance recently under 

 his own observation. The tank or reservoir connected with the mint steam 

 engines is well stored with the rili machli. During the late hot season the tem- 

 perature of this tank has risen to 104° or 105° Fahr. from the constant working 

 of the engines ; but this degree of heat seemed to incommode the fish consi- 

 derably, for they actually threw themselves on the banks as if to avoid it and 

 were caught by hand on the margin of the tank." 



Lieut. N. Vicary, on his return from New South Wales, presented 

 various objects for the museum, thus described in the curator's notice. 



1. The skin of the Echidna Histrisc, (Desm.) or spiny Echidna, Myrrnecophaga 

 acuata, Shaw, the aculeated ant-eater of Australia, since stuffed and mounted 

 for the museum. 



Being the only example of this singular animal at present in the musuem it 

 may be considered a valuable acquisition to the Society's cabinet. 



2. Skin of a small Platapus, Omithorhynchus parodoxus, (Blum.) which has 

 also been prepared and mounted. Of these animals there are now three good spe- 

 cimens in the museum all of the same species. 



