230 
PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
at the meetings of the Society. The first was a very remarkable form of Saxi- 
fraga geum—fine specimens of which he submitted to the meeting. It was first 
found by him in the Great Blasket Island, in 1842, and noticed in the Society 
at the December meeting of that year. It was remarkable for its strong growth 
and dark hirsute leaves, but more particularly for the glands which surround the 
ovary, and which, in the flowering state of the plant, present a beautiful appearance, 
the glands being of a deep rose-colour. It seemed remarkable in connecting the 
Saxifragaceae with the Parnassise and Crassulacese; it produces perfect seeds, and 
the seedlings present the same characteristics as the parent plant. Dr. Harvey, 
who took specimens to England, writes:— u Charles Darwin was very much inte¬ 
rested in your Blasket Saxifrage, particularly in the fact of its producing perfect 
seeds. He is working out some observations on the continuability of varieties by 
seed, and wishes much to know whether the seedlings from this Saxifrage produce 
the metamorphic glands of the parent. I told him L thought they did, but would 
get the full particulars from you.” My friend, Mr. Simon Eoot, who cultivated 
the plant, confirms the fact of the seedlings having the same formation of glands 
as the parent, and informed me that Dr. Bindley observed to him that he consi¬ 
dered it would prove to be a plant of great interest. Plants of Saxifraga Pedati- 
fida, Arabis Crantziana, and Saxifraga leucanthemifolia were exhibited, as ori¬ 
ginally noticed in the Society ; the two former discovered by the Right Hon. John 
Wynne, of Hazlewood, the Saxifrage in Mayo, and the Arabis on Benbulben, 
Sligo. The Saxifraga leucanthemifolia, which exhibited numerous foliaceous buds 
on the flowering branches, and which, on falling off, became young plants, was 
brought by Dr. Scouler from Portugal. On flowering, the following year, this 
peculiarity in the plant was seen and brought forward, as it had not been noticed 
by any continental botanist. The plants do not perfect their seeds. 
Mr. Andrews was then called upon to read his paper on 
THE SPAWNING STATES OF THE SYNGNATHIDiE, OR PIPE-FISH FAMILY. 
It had been my intention this evening to have submitted to the Society some 
peculiarities that I had observed in the spawning states of the Syngnathidse, or pipe¬ 
fish family, more especially with reference to Syngnathus typhle —the deep-nosed 
pipe-fish—and to the straight-nosed pipe-fish ( S. ophidion ), and to have added a 
review of the several British species (all of which I have obtained on the south¬ 
west coast), detailing their several habits and seasons of spawning. Prom this, 
however, I have been diverted by several communications that have been made 
relative to the habits of the salmon, and as to the identity of the fish known as the 
parr, or gravelling, with the Salmo salar. This being a subject of such importance, 
not alone in a scientific point, but in its practical application, that I again lay aside 
my paper upon the Syngnathidas, with the hope that this will afford full discussion 
of interest for the evening. It may be in the recollection of the members that a paper 
of great interest was given by Mr. Ffennell, Inspecting Commissioner of Fisheries, in 
the month of February, 1849, u On the Habits and Spawning States of the Salmon, 
and upon the Salmon Fisheries of this Country.” In that paper Mr. Ffennell sup¬ 
ported the views of Mr. Shaw, of Drumlanrig, relative to the first, and the parr 
state of the young salmon, and its remaining two years in the river before it as¬ 
sumed the smolt or migratory state ; and though he admitted that the seasons and 
the condition of salmon were not the same in all rivers, yet he maintained that a 
uniform system of open and close season should be adopted in order to prevent the 
nefarious and injurious system that might probably result in salmon being exposed 
for sale in a public market, taken from a close river while other rivers were open. 
This paper was, in some measure, an explanation with reference to an inquiry held 
on the fisheries of the Caragli and the Laune, in Kerry. My friend, Mr. Williams, 
at that meeting of the Society, energetically disputed that the fish known generally 
as the parr or gravelling was the young of the salmon. He had made examinations of 
an extensive collection of that little fish, which he had obtained throughout the 
seasons from the rivers of Cork and of Wicklow, and he was not disposed to 
agree with Mr. Shaw, of Drumlanrig, that all fish termed gravellings were 
the young of the salmon. At the meetings of April and of May last, notices 
were again brought forward by Mr. Ffennell and by Mr. Williams, and I thought 
