Royal Physical Society. 49 



Wednesday, December 26. Robert Kaye Greville, Esq., LL.D., 

 in the Chair. 



The Donations to the Library were laid on the table, and the thanks of 

 the Society voted to the donors. These included : — 1. Footmarks in the 

 Red Sandstone of Pottsville, Pennsylvania, by Isaac Lea. 2. On a Fossil 

 Saurian of the New Red Sandstone Formation of Pennsylvania, with 

 some account of that Formation. Also, On some New Fossil Molluscs in 

 the Carboniferous Slates of the Anthracite Seams of the Wilkesbarre Coal 

 Formation, 1852, by Isaac Lea. 3. Notice of the Oolitic Formation in 

 America, with Descriptions of some of its Organic Remains, by Isaac 

 Lea. 4. Descriptions of Nineteen New Specimens of Colimacea, by I. 

 Lea. 5. Description of a New Species of the Genus Unio, Toy I. Lea. 6. A 

 Synopsis of the Family of Naiades, by Isaac Lea. 7. Rectification of 

 Mr T. A. Conrad's " Synopsis of the Family of Naiades of North Ame- 

 rica," by Isaac Lea. 8. Meteorological Observations, Napa-Keang 

 (Loo-Choo). 1848-49, made by Dr Bettelheim. 9. Catalogue of the Ter- 

 tiary Testacea of the United States, by Henry C. Lea. 



From Isaac Lea,Esq., sent through the Smithsonian Institution, U.S.A. 



The following Communications were read :-— 



1. Notices of the Saury Pike (Scomberesox Sauris, Penn.), taken in the 

 Firth of Forth. (Specimens were exhibited.) 



Mr R. F. Logan referred to the immense influx of the Saury Pike, 

 Scomberesox Sauris, which visited the Firth of Forth in the beginning 

 of November. Many appeared about Musselburgh, and were carried by 

 the fishwives in their creels into Edinburgh. For a considerable time, 

 however, he found it impossible to obtain a perfect specimen at Dudding- 

 ston, as they had most ingeniously cut off their long snouts with the view 

 of deluding purchasers into the belief that they were young mackerel. 

 One, however, more honest than the rest, brought them au naturelle. 

 It seems an excessively delicate and easily-injured fish. He did not see 

 one with the scales on ; and all that were thrown up along the shore near 

 Leith appeared more or less mutilated. With regard to its food, he had 

 not been able to find any direct statement in our Ichthyological authors, 

 but suspected it must consist of delicate marine Annelides, possibly of the 

 genus Nereis and its allies, which the fish snaps across the body with its 

 long beak, and swallows at its leisure. This, however, was mere con- 

 jecture, which he had not at present the means of verifying, but received 

 some slight confirmation from a statement made by the most honest of the 

 above-mentioned fishwomen, — viz., that the fish were captured at Mussel- . 

 burgh and Fisherrow, by men and boys in the shallows with unbaited 

 hooks. Now, unless they took them for some kind of annulose animal, 

 it was difficult to understand why they should swallow hooks without a 

 bait. The earliest notice of its occurrence in Scotland seemed to be that 



VOL. I. q 



