size and vermilion to pass with great ease both through the vein and the artery. I have often found the vein burst in the L. sagittata in forcing the same injection through that vessel, in a direction contrary to the natural course of the blood. The central heart has very thin white firm walls, slightly marked internally with columnæ carneæ; and its capacity is more than three times that of each lateral heart. The distribution of the arteries and veins, as might be expected, was similar to that of the vulgaris, so far as I could trace them. The white fringed lip surrounding the two bills is rather short; the bills, of a deep brown colour, are likewise short and powerful; the lower one is much expanded at its base. The tongue is covered with an amber-coloured hard, horny, membrane, which has several longitudinal rows of sharp reflected teeth. The upper pair of salivary glands are round, flat, deeply lobed on the margins, of a white colour, bound to the fleshy sides of the mouth, and they send their ducts through these fleshy parietes into the mouth. By remaining some weeks in spirits, these glands acquired a purple colour, while the lower pair, equally exposed, were not affected. The lower pair of salivary glands are of a pale-red colour, about an inch long, and three quarters of an inch broad, compressed, smooth, not lobed like those of the vulgaris, firm in texture, somewhat triangular or heart-shaped, and they are loosely suspended behind the upper margin of the liver, by means of their vessels, nerves, and ducts. On cutting open these large compact glands, we find a small cavity, like the pelvis of a kidney, at their upper part, from which the ducts commence. They are about ten times as large as the upper pair. Their two ducts unite into one, which passes up on the fore part of the oesophagus for nearly two inches, to enter the mouth at the root of the tongue. When the oesophagus reaches the upper and back part of the liver, it becomes firmly connected to that organ, and expands into a wide membranous crop, deeply marked internally with longitudinal folds, and covered with a vil lous appearance. The part of the crop which is most intimately connected with the substance of the liver is drawn upwards in the form of a cœcum, and has a glandular texture. The crop tapers as it descends obliquely to the gizzard. This membranous crop is not present in the Loligo sagittata, where the oesophagus passes without dilatation to the stomach, at the bottom of the liver, next to the spinal sac. The muscular sides of the gizzard are of great thickness, and as strong in proportion as those of a domestic fowl. Its two fleshy sides are placed nearer the upper than the lower end; the under end is thin and membranous. The hard cartilaginous dining of the gizzard I found quite detached from the sides; and, on examining its contents carefully in a watch-glass, I collected some un-digested muscular parts of a pale-red colour, fragments of the crustaceous covering and joints of young crabs, and some coarse particles of sand. I have no doubt, from the appearance of these parts through the microscope, that the particles of sand aided in the comminution of the hard shells. In the L. sagittala there is only a thin, wide. membranous stomach in the place of this thick fleshy gizzard. The upper and left side of the gizzard opens into the spiral stomach, whic has nothing peculiar. The large intestine, on leaving the spi stomach, makes a long curve downwards behind the left branchial heart, like another cœcum, before it mounts upwards on the fore part of the liver, to terminate at the base of the funnel. The liver is short, spherical, of the usual orange-yellow colour, composed of the ramifications of vessels filled with a coloured fluid. In the O. vulgaris it is cylindrical, from the greater length of the body; and, for the same reason, it is very long and cylindrical in the L. sagittata. Its canals are not surrounded by the pancreatic glands, which I have shewn, in the L. sagittata, to embrace and communicate with these ducts during their whole passage from the liver to the spiral stomach, and which were mistaken for the ovarium at a period when the structure of these animals was very little known, (See Edin. Phil. Journ., vol. xiii. p. 197). The want of these glands in the O. ventricosus is compensated for by the very large inferior pair of salivary glands. The ink-bag is deeply imbedded and nearly concealed in the substance of the liver, but it sends out its excretory duct from the lower and fore part of that organ, to terminate as usual in the anus. The colour of the ink is quite different from that of the L. sagittata; and as the colour of this substance is constant in each of the cephalopodous animals, a more intimate acquaintance with this character might be useful in tracing relations among the different species. The colour of the ink in the L. sagittata is a deep brown, approaching to yellowish-brown, when much diluted, and corresponds remarkably with the coloured spots on the skin of that species. In the O. ventricosus, the colour of the ink is pure black, and is blackish-grey when diluted on paper. The ink, brought in a solid state from China, has the same pure black colour as in the ventricosus, and differs entirely in its shade, when diluted, from that of the L. sagittata, as may be seen from specimens of these three colours on drawing-paper. Swammerdam suspected the China ink to be made from that of the Sepia, Cuvier found it more like that of the Octopus and Loligo; but different kinds of that substance are brought from China, probably made from different genera of these animals, where they abound of gigantic size. Ink is at present made from these animals in Italy (Cuv. Mem. p. 4), and from the immense shoals of the L. sagittata cast ashore every spring in the Firth of Forth, it might likewise be manufactured here. The ink is not contained in a simple cavity attached to the liver, but is diffused through a soft cellular substance which fills the ink-bag, and must render more tedious the preparation of this substance for the arts. The oesophageal ganglia, compared to the brain and cerebellum of vertebral animals, were small, white, soft, without internal cavities, lodged in open recesses of the cartilaginous ring surrounding the œsophagus, and were separated from the oesophagus only by a thin transparent membrane, to which they firmly adhered. The large reniform optic ganglia, the band of nerves proceeding from these to the retina, the white pulpy glandular masses within the back part of the sclerotic, the division of the lens, and the general structure of the eye, are the same as in the vulgaris. At the bottom of the large shut spherical cavities of the ears, which were capable of containing a garden pea, lay a very delicate membranous sac, containing a little fluid, 1 and a small red-coloured stone shaped like a limpet, the only earthy matter in this animal. These small bones of the ear are conícal, solid, of a rose-red colour on the sides, flat and white on the base; their apex is rounded and curved backward, their length, breadth, and height, are about half a line. When cut, they appear white and translucent within, like the inner layers of an oyster shell; they are very slightly excavated in the centre of their flat base, and they dissolve with effervescence when touched with nitric acid, like other substances composed of carbonate of lime. The great nervous trunk accompanying the small artery in the central tube of the arms, the great ganglion, with about twenty nerves radiating from it, placed within the upper and back part of the mantle, and the other nerves and ganglia, were very conspicuous, and corre sponded in distribution to those of the vulgaris. The specimen I dissected was a female, and the ovarium, consisting of beautiful detached ramified trunks, enclosed in a wide membranous sac, occupied the lowest part of the general cavity of the body, as in the other cephalopodous animals. The ova, instead of being attached by their peduncles to a single point, as in the vulgaris (See Cuv. Mem. p. 31.), were attached to the extreme ramifications of about twenty branched trunks, which hung by separate stalks from the upper end of the membranous sac. The two reniform glands through which the oviducts pass, and which very probably secret the coverings of the ova, as in the skate and other fishes, and connect them together, were about the size of a pea, of the same dark colour as the lateral hearts, and were placed about half an inch from the lower end of the oviducts. The oviducts opened on each side about half way between the lateral hearts and the anus. Meteorological Observations made in Jamaica by the late JOHN LINDSAY, Esq. Surgeon, Jamaicà. Communicated by W. C. TREVELYAN, Esq. M. W. S. &c. THE author of the following Tables is well known to the public. He published an account of the Epidemic Catarrh of the latter end of the year 1789, as it appeared in Jamaica, in Med. Com. vol. xvii. p. 499, 1792. Also, an account of the Germination and Raising of Ferns from Seed, Trans. Lin. Soc. vol. xi. p. 93, 1792; of the Quassia Polygama, or Bitter Wood of Jamaica; and, of the Cinchona brachycarpa, a new species of Jesuit's Bark, found in the same island, Trans. Soc. Edin. vol. iii. p. 205, 1794. Thermometer, for Five Years, viz. 1786, 1787, 1788, 1789 A TABLE, shewing the Highest, Lowest and Medium Heat tween Eight and Nine O'Clock at Night, by Fahrenheit's at Sunrise; between One and Two o'Clock, P. M.; and be and 1790. A. D. 1786. | A. D. 1787. | A. D. 1788. | A. D. 1789. | A. D. 1790. 15 Dec. Nov. Oct. Sept. Aug. July. | June. 199 | Dec. | Nov. | Oct. | Sept. | Aug. | July. | June. | May. | April. | Mar. | Feb. | Jan. | 78 | Dec. | Nov. | Oct. | Sept. | Aug. | July. | June. | May. | April.| Mar. | Feb. | Jan. | | Dec. | Nov. | Oct. | Sept. | Aug. | July. | June. | May. April | Mar. | Feb. Jan. | Lowest. zzzzzzzzzz zz zz 12zz 12zz Ezz źzz Ezz i | Dec. Nov. | Oct. Sept. | Aug. | July. | June. | May. | April. | Mar. | Feb. | Jan. | 2 Monthly and Annual number of Days on which Rain or Thunder is mentioned 1785. 1786. 1787. 1788. 1789. 1790. 1791. 1792. Rain. Thun. Rain. Thun. Rain. Thun. Rain. Thun. Rain. Thun. Rain. Thun. Rain. Thun. Rain. Thun. July August September 25 October November 18 December 17 15 1 19 52 ∞ 12 16 10 14 19 22 Total. 116 72 222 79 244 112 238 137 254 108 97 31 The greatest quantity of rain appears to have fallen be tween the months of May and November. Hail is mentioned in Mr Lindsay's Notes to have fallen on the 27th and 28th of August 1791. A smart shock of an earthquake, which lasted about half a minute, happened on 21st October. Another is mentioned on 1st July 1791. 4 |