2 chiefly directed to the Eucalyptus rostrata in Australia, where he r 5 
> a DAE Proceedings of Scientific Societies. [March, 
tions. Each hall is 170 feet long by 60 wide, inside the walls. 
The lowest story is 18 feet high ; the second, or principal story, 
including the gallery is 30 feet; the upper story 22 feet, and the 
Mansard story 16 feet in height. 
— On the 21st of May, 1877, fourteen carp, only three of which 
_were old enough to spawn this season, were placed in a pond near 
the residence of Henry Parsons, three miles from this city. On 
the roth of October, following, the pond was drawn off, and the 
original fourteen carp, much grown and in a fine condition and 
healthy, together with their increase of 1408 young and vigorous 
fish, were taken out and placed in a breeding pond for next year. 
_— A Sea Lion and Sturgeon in Combat. In San Francisco bay 
the angler sometimes hooks a salmon that has had a piece bitten 
out of the shoulder by the rapacious seal, and certainly the seal 
lives by masticating fish in whole or part. Recently the passen- 
gers on the 10 o'clock, a. M. boat from Oakland, witnessed a 
tough fight between a sturgeon and a sea lion. The seal 
bit viciously at the gill openings of its adversary, and showed 
superior finesse in planning the campaign, while the sturgeon 
lashed the water powerfully with its unequally lobed tail, and 
occasionally administered a stunning blow to the seal. ood 
flowed profusely and the water was dyed for yards around, 
but eventually the sturgeon yielded up the ghost, being seized 
unluckily by the tail and paralyzed in movement by having 
its only propeller nearly bitten off. Thus wounded and circum- 
vented, it speedily desisted from the battle, and the seal adminis- 
tered the coup de grace, and towed his dinner beneath the waves. 
The spectacle was an exciting one.— San Francisco Paper. 
— A new species of Chimera has recently been captured on the 
Banks. This is the first occasion of this interesting fish so low 
down the American coast, though a species occurs in British 
rs. 
os 
PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 
CALIFORNIA ACADEMY oF ScIENCES, December 17th—Dr. H. 
Behr read an interesting paper giving the results of his experi- 
ments on the resistance of some species of Eucalyptus to ignition. 
Whether all the Eucalypti share in this peculiar power of resist- 
ing fire, has not been ascertained. His observations had been 
often seen it flourishing in burnt tracts where every other tree. 
_ had been consumed. He attributed this peculiar property of the 
