Extracts from the Minute-Book of the Linnean Society. 403 
up their abdomen in the manner of the large Staphylini, 
bending the extremity quite over the head, which they 
defend by means of their enormous forceps. The largest. 
he could procure was nearly fifteen lines in length, exclu- 
sive of the antenne, which measured somewhat more 
than half an inch. , 
Nov.7, Mr. Sowerby, F.L.S. communicated the following ac- 
1809. count of a remarkable stone, known by the name of the 
Blowing-Stone, on the road from Farringdon to Uffington, 
in Berkshire. ~ : ; j 
The Blowing-Stone is placed near the front of a little 
public-house, to which it gives its name. It is an un- 
wrought Sand-stone, about three fect high, three fect 
wide, and. nearly eighteen inches in thickness, having na- 
tural perforations, One of these perforations begins at 
the upper end on one side, and passes to the other side a 
little lower down. It is eighteen inches in length, about 
an inch in diameter at the upper end, and nearly two 
- inches at the lower; thus forming a tube like a horn, and 
when filled with wind sounds like one, and may be heard 
at a considerable distance. Any one used to blowing a 
horn can sound it. Mr. Sowerby has not been able to 
determine whether these perforations were caused by roots 
of trees or by an animal; but he concludes that they have 
been formed in the same manner as those observed in 
. some of the Sand-stone found on Marlborough Downs. 
Mr. Sowerby also communicated the following account 
of a pit about two miles from Farringdon, cómmonly 
called the Farringdon Gravel Pit. 
* This pit is of a nature not yet described, being a rock 
VOL. x. 34 | com- 
