other, and moving in echelon, so as to appear as if the hail had fallen in stripes. Providentially there was but little wind, and the number of hail stones comparatively few. The larger pieces appeared to be aggregated of numerous others, which were likewise composed of smaller ones. Some, however, of more than ordinary size, appeared single, as if they had been snow balls immersed in water, and refrozen, The largest of these I saw resembled the section of a large hen's egg. About 5 P. M. the same afternoon, a hot or very warm current of air passed over, of such temperature and composition, as to threaten those who breathed it with instant death. Their only remedy was by stooping down near the earth. It actually did prove fatal to the leaves, and parts of leaves of many vegetables, by which means its traces were discovered above sixty miles, along and near the Ohio river. Near Cincinnati it whitened the points of the green blades of a whole field of oats. Its causes are a proper subject of investigation for your society; and I cannot help thinking, that whoever discovers them, must become a literary creditor to those who have derived the sirocco wind from the sandy deserts of Arabia. «N. B. The current of hot air happened entirely out of the tract of the hail, to the southward and eastward of it." No. V. The FISHES OF NEW-YORK, described and arranged. By SAMUEL L. MITCHILL, M. D. Professor of Natural History in the University of New-York, one of the Corresponding Secretaries of the Literary and Philosophical Society, &c. [Read before the Society 8th of December, 1814.] In the present arrangement I have distributed the fishes into five orders; to wit, APODAL, when they are destitute of ventral fins; JUGULAR, when these are situated on the neck; THORACIC, when they grow on the breast; ABDOMINAL, when they arise from the belly. These four orders comprehend the fishes that have bones. The cartilaginous fishes, which have been divided by several very able zoologists into two orders, the chondropterygious, or those which have leathery fins, and the branchiostegious, or such as have concealed gills, are here included in a single order of CARTILAGINOUS; making the fifth division of the class. The fishes of New-York, as far as they have come to my knowledge, may be exhibited in the following table : Amounting to one hundred and forty-seven species of fishes embraced in my memoir. To these I add some memorable varieties, which present themselves to the of every observer, and ought to be noticed by the naturalist. Among the more distinguishable forms of these are, eye Amounting to nineteen well-defined varieties of the New-York fishes. The enumeration now stands thus: Species of New-York fishes, 147 19 Species and varieties, 186 I have had before me, during my inquiries, the Leyden copy of the Museum Icthyologicum, by L. T. GRONOVIUS, 1754, fol.; CASTEL'S French edition of BLOCH's Histoire Naturelle des Poissons, Paris, 10 tom. 12mo. 1801; GMELIN's edition of LINNE'S Systema Natura, with TUR |