PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
9 
Mr. Andrews described the characteristics of this handsome duck, deriving its name 
from the loose, angular skin attached to the upper mandibles. It is termed 
“ Wrongi”in New South Wales, and known as the pink-eyed duck by the colonists 
of Swan River. At the same time was also noticed the capture of the dusky 
petrel (Puffinus obscurus), in the month of May of the same year, off the Island of 
Valencia; and also the obtaining, in Dingle Bay, the young of the greater shear¬ 
water (Puffinus major), but termed Puffinus fuliginosus of Strickland, and, at the 
time, considered to be distinct from the great shearwater (Puffinus cinereus). Mr. 
R. J. Montgomery exhibited a specimen of the great cinereous shrike (Lanius 
excubitor), and the black-cap warbler (Motacilla atricapilla), both shot by him 
in Beaulieu Wood, county of Louth. The shrike, or butcher-bird, was the fifteenth 
of its record in Ireland. Mr. Andrews noticed that it had been communicated to 
him by Mr. Blackburn, of Valencia, that the turnstone (Strepsilas interpres), with 
four young ones, unable to fly, were taken, in the month of June, near the old 
revenue station, in that Island, being confirmatory of the breeding of that bird in 
Ireland. At the meeting, in the month of January, of this year, Professor Allman 
stated some observations that he had made on a remarkable peculiarity of the ad¬ 
ventitious roots of u Jussisea Grandiflora.” The remarkable condition he 
observed, was in a specimen of this plant which grew in the College 
Botanical Gardens. Some of the roots which proceed from the nodes of the 
stem, instead of growing downwards, so as to fasten themselves in the mud in 
the bottom of the water in which the plant grows, assume an ascending 
direction, and grow into the air, where they present a very remarkable appear¬ 
ance, looking like portions of rush-pith attached to the stem of the plant. 
A microscopical examination of these roots exhibited peculiar structures of ex¬ 
ceedingly delicate stellate cells—the intercellular spaces constituting air chambers 
of a very remarkable character in the vegetable kingdom. In the woody fibres 
of the same plant. Professor Allman discovered the remarkable peculiarity of 
their being filled with starch granules—a state of prosenchymatous tissue almost 
unique in the vegetable kingdom. This was followed by a paper from Mr. 
Andrews u On the Harbour Pish of the south-west coast of Ireland,” principally 
relating to those fish that were permanent residents in harbours and estuaries, 
and those that visited such localities for the purposes of spawning. He alluded 
to the great attraction and interest afforded in the Zoological Gardens of 
London, by the arrangement of those extensive tanks in the vivaria, where the 
habits, modes of progression, and the seeking of food, which influence marine 
animals, form a pleasing study to the accurate observer, who is thus enabled 
to detect important facts in their economy and habits, which the silent depths of 
their haunts veil from inquiry, and render observation of, conjectural. In the enu¬ 
meration of the several genera and species, Mr. Andrews described the habits, 
characters, and localities of some rare and beautiful species he had obtained on 
the south-west coast, and concluded by noticing positions where extensive store- 
ponds could be formed, and in which the habits, and spawning states of our deep¬ 
water marine fish could be traced, and where not alone important physiological 
facts could be arrived at, but the accumulation of stores of fish, which would 
be available at seasons as a valuable traffic. Mr. Callwell said, the subject 
brought forward was one of great interest and value, both to the scientific and to 
the practical. He could confirm, with regard to the fisheries, how Useful the for¬ 
mation of such store-ponds would be. At the Island of Innistrahull, about six 
miles from Malin Head, off the coast of Donegal, the islanders supplied vessels 
with fish on passing the island. They had fine whale boats 5 and during the 
fishing seasons brought the fish alive, which they placed in a store-pond, naturally 
formed in the island ; and they were thus prepared to put turbot and other prime 
fish on board the steamers on the passage from Sligo to Glasgow, or to Liverpool. 
Mr. Ffennell, Commissioner of Fisheries, commented on the importance of the 
concluding part of Mr. Andrews’s statements; and as bearing on the artificial pro¬ 
pagation of fish, he noticed the operations carrying on in the salmon fisheries of this 
country. He read a report communicated by Mr. Buist, of Perth, and stated the 
system of the propagation of the ova of the salmon, by Mr. Ramsbottom and by 
the Messrs. Ashworth, in Lough Corrib, the experiments in progress at St. 
