1885. ] Froceedings of Scientific Societies. 927 
in structure might be the result of what was originally a patho- 
logical condition. i 
— At the same meeting Mr. E. T. Newton read a paper on the 
remains of a gigantic bird (Gastornis plassent) from the English 
Lower Eocene. The author observed, reports Vature, that these 
fossils proved that in early Eocene times England was inhabited 
by a race of birds which equaled in their proportions some of the 
more massive forms of the New Zealand moas. 
— Hon. J. D. Cox publishes in the Journal of the Royal Micro- 
scopical Society for June an interesting article on the structure 
of the diatom shell, in which he attempts to prove the actual 
presence of films of silex, whose tenuity is so great that they are 
not visible by ordinary transmitted light. _ 
— The Des Moines Academy of Science has issued the first 
number of its Bulletin, which contains, besides an introductory 
note, an article by R. E. Call, entitled a geographic catalogue of 
the Unionidz of the Mississippi valley. 
— Professor J. H. Whiteside, the zronaut, has presented to 
Woodward’s Gardens a canary twenty-two years old. The bird 
is sightless, songless and very feeble. 
— We learn that Dr. Taschenberg, of Halle, is preparing a new 
edition of the well-known Bibliotheca Zodlogica of Agassiz and 
others, 
— Dr. Franklin B. Hough died June 11th, 1885, aged 62. He 
was for a while United States Commissioner of Forestry, and gave 
much attention to that subject. 
x 8 emer 
PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 
April 28.—Mr. Morris stated his conviction that the swim-blad- 
der in fishes was a degenerate organ, formerly of use, but now 
without an important function. The fact that in embryonic states 
