NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



tubercules. According to Professor Dana, the colours of the 

 cortical layer in all the alcyonoicl corals, which may be orange, 

 crimson, scarlet, or purple, are due to the colour of the minute 

 calcareous spicules of which it is composed, and which form beauti- 

 ful and interesting objects for microscopic examination. 



Mr. John Young, F.G.S., showed a number of specimens of 

 Sphaeria, a parasitic fungus which attaches itself to the head of 

 the caterpillar of one of the lepidoptera. As the fungus grows it 

 roots itself in the body of the insect, which it ultimately destroys, 

 rising as a narrow stem to the height of two or three inches. It 

 is stated that this parasite presents a rather curious appearance as 

 a crop of them is seen springing from the ground where the cater- 

 pillars have buried themselves. It is collected by the Chinese, 

 who use it as a medicine, for which a high price is paid. 



Mr. John Kirsop brought forward a series of specimens of Silurian 

 and Devonian corals, &c. , from Torquay and Bristol, on which some 

 remarks were made by Mr. James Thomson, F.G.S. 



Mr. Walter Burns exhibited a collection of fossils obtained from 

 the calciferous or cementstone beds near the Heads of Ayr, the 

 remarks on which were postponed until the following meeting. 



PAPER READ. 



On a Group of Fossil Organisms termed Conodunts. By 



Mr. John Young, F.G.S. 



The writer said that these forms had recently been discovered 

 in the Carboniferous limestones of the Ayrshire coal-field by Mr. 

 John Smith, of the Eglinton Ironworks, Kilwinning, a gentleman 

 who has done much good work during recent years in the collect- 

 ing of the minuter forms of life which had been deposited over 

 the Carboniferous old sea bottoms. Mr. Smith having kindly 

 forwarded his specimens for examination, he had taken the oppor- 

 tunity of bringing them before* the members of the Natural History 

 Society, that this interesting discovery might be recorded. The 

 organisms termed Conodonts are minute, slender, conical, tooth- 

 like bodies, of varying forms, of a brownish colour, and having a 

 glistening or enamelled appearance. They were first brought 

 under the notice of geologists in 1856, by Dr. Pander, in a work 

 descriptive of the fossil fishes of the Silurian formation in Russia, 

 in which country they are found ranging from the upper Cambrian 



