Meeting.] 338 [Dec. 1, 



or about the giant cuttle-fishes of the north, or the whales and 

 other cetaceans he had seen before the modern methods of capture 

 were introduced. Such an evening was sure to bring out fact 

 after fact from our veteran fisherman, as question after question 

 was asked. He was by nature an accurate observer and, follow- 

 ing the sea from his boyhood, he had ample opportunity to use his 

 powers. When he became his own master these observations 

 were of practical value to him and he based his fishing ventures 

 upon them. This love for natural history made him in every way 

 a broader, grander man than he otherwise naturally would have 

 been. It led to a desire for more knowledge and to a self-cultiva- 

 tion which had its reward in the close association he had with such 

 men as Storer, Gould, Wyman, Agassiz, and other leaders in our 

 Society, to all of whom he gave information, and by whom he was 

 encouraged in his studies. It secured to him the respect of his 

 neighbors so that they sent him to the state legislature, and he also 

 most worthily occupied the platform of the Lowell Institute. When 

 the state legislature, in 1856, appointed a commission to investi- 

 gate the artificial breeding of fish with a view to restocking our 

 rivers, Captain Atwood was one of the three appointed, Judge 

 Chapman and Dr. Wheatland being the others, and to him fell the 

 honor and the labor of carrying on the first fish-hatchery in our state. 

 It is a singular coincidence that I was an invited guest at Captain 

 Atwood's house at Provincetown at the meeting of this commission, 

 and am now a member of the state board which resulted from these 

 preliminary experiments. Well do I remember the house upon the 

 Point, with the glass in its windows ground and cut through by the 

 driving sands ; and while all was flying sand and spray without, my 

 boy's heart then and there, in the snug dining room, went out to the 

 kind, and to me then old, man, and ever since he has been cher- 

 ished as a friend, and now his memory will be dear to me as I 

 know it will be to all who had the good fortune to know him." 



Mr. S. R. Bartlett gave a brief review of Ranvier's researches on 

 the salivary glands of the Mammalia. 



Mr. W. L. Harris exhibited a living Amblystoma from Wil- 

 mington, Mass., apparently new to our fauna ; and another species, 

 A. mavortium, from Iowa. Mr. Harris also showed a pale pinkish 

 specimen of our common Massachusetts newt of adult size, but 

 bearing well developed external gills. 



