NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 217 



hardy. At Messrs. Austin & M 'Asian's Titwood Nursery, which 

 is considerably lower than the Queen's Park, Portugal and Bay 

 Laurels, Sweet Bays, Aucuba japonica, and Laurestinas were con- 

 siderably cut up. From several newspaper reports it appears that, 

 in the south and east of Scotland, during January, the thermometer, 

 on several occasions, registered a few degrees below zero. Con- 

 sequently Cech'us deodara, and many valuable Coniferae, were 

 killed outright; and, in various instances, hares and rabbits, in a 

 famished state, stripped the bark off every green twig within their 

 reach. Even the Monkey Puzzle, Araucaria imbricata, did not 

 escape their ravages. In the north and west apparently little 

 damage has been occasioned by frost ; but in not a few instances 

 the snow, especially during .March, deprived many a noble silver 

 spruce and Scotch fir of its branches, which means slow death. 

 The pecuniary loss sustained throughout Scotland from the effects 

 of wind and weather upon trees is estimated at several hundred 

 thousand pounds. 



II. — On Tubers, Bidbs, and Tap Roots, their Functions in the 

 Vegetable Economy. By Mr. Alexander S. Wilson, M.A., B.Sc. 



Every part of an organism is so intimately related to the 

 conditions under which it lives, that only by the study of such 

 relationships are we enabled to disentangle those complex forces, 

 by the balancing and counteracting of which the stability of any 

 organic form is in nature determined. Formerly, naturalists were 

 too much given to the habit of looking on vegetable structures 

 (and animal ones too, for that matter) solely in their relation to 

 man's wants and necessities. Thus the beauty and fragrance of 

 flowers were conceived to be merely for human enjoyment; fruits 

 were not regarded as means whereby the species of plants were to 

 be disseminated and propagated, but as food for man and beast. 

 Now, however, the truth of the doctrine that no animal or plant 

 ever possesses any structure or habit solely for the benefit of 

 another, is beginning to be recognized, and the further recognition 

 of this truth is, we venture to think, destined to give rise to many 

 interesting investigations. 



In the case of no structures, perhaps, has their primary object 

 been more lost sight of than in the case of tubers, bulbs, and tap- 

 roots. From the high economic value possessed by many of these, 

 they seem hitherto to have been considered only in the light of 



