190 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



getting driven away by the continuous and wholesale destruction 

 of their eggs. In this case the Protective Acts are a perfectly 

 dead letter. The eggs are destroyed in thousands. Terns, Ring 

 Plovers, Dunlins, Lapwings, &c, are suffering dreadfully. Scarcely 

 a single bird gets flown ; and as for Shieldrakes and Eiders, every 

 egg is blown or boiled. Such is the state of matters here. You 

 may make use of this statement at your meeting, and I can 

 substantiate every word to be correct." 



Have we not a " Society of Field Naturalists " at Dundee 1 I 

 think so. And is it not part of their duty to try and prevent this 

 destruction 1 It ought to be considered part of the duty of every 

 local Natural History Society to do so. Pressure should be brought 

 to bear on the magistrates, continued and repeated until some- 

 thing is accomplished. 



October 28th, 1879. 



Professor John Young, M.D., F.G.S., President, in the chair. 



Mr. A. J. Grant was elected a corresponding member, and 

 Professor J. Bailey Balfour, Messrs. James C. Christie, and James 

 Eggleton, ordinary members of the Society. 



SPECIMENS EXHIBITED. 



The Secretary exhibited a collection of Silicious Sponge Spicules, 

 Conodonts, and Fish Remains, which he had obtained at Laigh 

 Baidland, on an excursion of the Society to the Dairy district 

 during last summer. He said — The spicules are those of Hyalo- 

 nema Smithii, which were first found in Carboniferous strata 

 in the lower limestones at Cunningham Baidland, by Mr. John 

 Smith, of Kilwinning, and the Conodonts, which are of a con- 

 siderable variety of forms, are to a large extent similar to those 

 found by Mr. Smith at Glencart Bridge, and brought before the 

 Society during last session. The chief interest attached to the 

 present collection is because it comes from a different locality, 

 and one which had not before been visited by the members of 

 the Society. Several of the Conodonts are nearly identical 

 with those figured from the Palaeozoic rocks of Russia, and the 

 Devonian and Carboniferous formations of North America; but, 

 as is well known, their relation to any of the families of the 

 marine fauna is still undetermined — some writers referring them 



