rEBEUAKY 3, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



187 



songs. These are of such interest as to be 

 worthy of reproduction as follows : 



William H. Dall read an abstract of the 

 results of the study of the non-marine mollusk 

 fauna of Alaska and the adjacent parts of 

 Asia and North America, in which the rela- 

 tions of the east Siberian fauna to that of 

 Europe, China and Japan ; and of the Hudson 

 Bay territorial fauna to that of eastern 

 Canada, the Mississippi Valley and the Pacific 

 slope were sliown, and those of all the fore- 

 going to the fauna of Alaska as at present 

 known. He regarded the probability of many 

 new forms being found in these regions as 

 very small, for though still very imperfectly 

 explored, the conditions on the whole are very 

 uniform, and in some portions of the area 

 quite thorough collecting has been done. 



B. W. Evermann spoke of ' A Trip to 

 Mount Whitney,' giving account of personal 

 experiences while on a trip with the pack 

 train into the region of Mount Whitney, Cali- 

 fornia, in search of the golden trout of Vol- 

 cano Creek. 



The 393d regular meeting was held De- 

 cember 17, 1904. Dr. E. L. Greene spoke on 

 'The Earliest Book of Systematic Botany,' 

 discussing the absence of everything approach- 

 ing a natural classification of plants in an- 

 cient and medieval botanical works, following 

 with a statement of the principles first enun- 

 ciated by the Italian Caesalpinus in his book 

 'De Plantis' (1583), that plants and trees 

 admit of a natural arrangement by consider- 

 ing the characteristics of their fruit and 

 seeds ; thus inaugurating the era of systematic 

 botany. A cursory review of this book was 

 given and statements made of that imperfect, 

 though in general very natural sequence of 

 genera which it exhibits. 



A. B. Baker spoke briefly of 'Animals Re- 

 cently Eeceived at the National Zoological 

 Park from Abyssinia and South America.' 



Among those mentioned were the animals re- 

 ceived through President Roosevelt, to whom 

 they were presented by King Menelek, of 

 Abyssinia. Most interesting of these are the 

 Somali ostrich, probably the only one of its 

 kind in this country; the Grevy zebra, per- 

 haps the handsomest of zebras; and two pe- 

 culiar gelada baboons. He also spoke of ani- 

 mals received from South America through 

 the U. S. Consul at Asuncion and by exchange 

 with the Zoological Garden of Buenos Aires. 

 These included a jaguar, guanacos, peccaries, 

 capybaras, rheas, tinamous and a crested 

 screamer. 



Dr. Hugh M. Smith gave an account of the 

 Japanese ayu or sweet-fish (Plecoglossus alti- 

 velis), which in some respects is one of the 

 most remarkable of fishes. It is one of the 

 Salmonidse, but differs markedly from the 

 salmons and trouts, and has been made the 

 basis of a separate subfamily by Dr. Theodore 

 Gill. The ayu is an annual fish, the entire 

 cycle of its life from the egg to its death 

 covering not more than a year. In dying 

 after once spawning, it resembles the Pacific 

 salmons. The eggs, laid in fall in rivers, are 

 attached to stones, and hatch in a much short- 

 er time than those of any other member of 

 the family. The migrations are very peculiar, 

 embodying a combination of anadromous and 

 catadromous which is unparalleled; strictly 

 speaking, however, the fish is neither ana- 

 dromous nor catadromous, for it does not as- 

 cend the streams to spawn, and when it runs 

 down the streams to spawn it does not go to 

 sea. When young the ayu subsists on animal 

 food, but after entering fresh water it feeds 

 almost exclusively on alga;, which it scrapes 

 from stones in mountain streams by means of 

 curious chitinous papilla which develop on 

 the lips. The method of catching the ayu 

 with trained cormorants was described and 

 illustrated by lantern slides. 



Wilfred H. Osgood, 



Secretary. 



NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES: SECTION OF 

 GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY. 



The meeting of Januaiy 9, 1905, was called 

 to order by the chairman. Dr. E. O. Hovey; 



