82 Proceedings of Societies. [ ZOE 
spoken of. These have played an important part in the evolution 
of these forms as the development of edible fruits and brilliant flow- 
ers has undoubtedly been brought about mainly through their agency. 
As soon as the distribution of seeds and the pollination of flowers 
became dependent upon these, sharp competition was set up to at- 
tract these visitors, and the result we see in the amazing variety of 
forms now upon the earth. 
March 5, 1892. Annual Meeting. The Vice-President, Mrs. M. 
W. Kincaid, in the chair. 
The annual reports of the Secretary and Treasurer were read 
and ordered filed. 
The following officers were elected for the ensuing year: 
President—Douglas H. Campbell. 
Vice-President—Mrs. S. W. Dennis. 
Secretary—Frank H. Vaslit. 
Treasurer—Miss A. M. Manning. 
Librarian—Mrs. S. W. Burtchaell. 
Curator —Miss Edith B. Falkenau. 
, Miss C. H. Hittell, C.C. Riedy. 
March 24,1892. J. M. Hutchings in the chair. 
The following were elected to membership: Volney Rattan, Miss 
Kate Hodgkinson, Dr. C. B. Brigham, James Denman, Miss Bertha 
E. Stringer, Miss Lotta Bean, Miss K. E. Cole, Mrs. L. H. Sharp, 
Miss Jessie Smith, Mrs. M. F. McRoberts, Theodor Michaelis, Dr. 
Joseph Pescia, Prof. W. M. Searby. 
Mrs. Katharine Bandegee read a paper on the Fertilization of 
Flowering Plants. 
The speaker gave a brief outline of the reproductive processes, 
as far as understood, of Phanerogamic and Cryptogamic plants, 
and showed that the latter approached much nearer the animal 
kingdom by their motile spermatozoids and necessity of fluid me- 
dia. The fertilization of flowering plants is brought about by means 
of the winds, by the visits of insects and by the mechanism of the 
flowers themselves. The first two agencies, especially the second, 
had, the speaker thought, been unduly credited at the expense of 
the third. Dicecious and moneecious flowers were necessarily de- 
pendent upon the first two agencies, but in the great mass of an- 
nual plants, nearly all having hermaphrodite flowers, and somany of 
