'226 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



culty of getting precise information on the comparative number of 

 perfect insects produced from a like number of eggs of partheno- 

 genetic and bi-sexual insects was so great that he only threw out 

 the suggestion in order to direct inquiry to the subject. 



February 24th, 1880. 



Mr. John A. Harvie Brown, F.Z.S., M.B.O.TL, Vice-President, 

 in the Chair. 



SPECIMENS EXHIBITED. 



Mr. William Stewart exhibited a fine series of mounted speci- 

 mens of Native Ferns. The collection, which embraced nearly all 

 the British species, with a number of interesting varieties, was 

 much admired from the perfect way in which the specimens had 

 been preserved and mounted. Mr. Stewart pointed out any 

 peculiarities connected with them, and stated the localities where 

 they had been gathered. Several of the members made remarks 

 on the collection. 



PAPERS READ. 



I. — Notes, chiefly Botanical, of a Visit to the Island of Coll. 



By Mr. Thomas Scott. 



Not long before the Greenock Fair Holidays last year, as I was 

 casting about for a place where I could conveniently spend a day 

 or two, and perhaps have an opportunity of adding some specimens 

 to my herbarium, a Greenock friend, who has a good deal of busi- 

 ness intercourse with the Island of Coll, offered to procure for me 

 a free passage there and back. Knowing that it lies rather out of 

 the usual line of migration of botanists, while at the same time it 

 formed a sort of Ultima Thule to myself, I gladly accepted the 

 offer, and thus it was that I came to spend my holidays in Coll. 

 I trust you will accord me your forbearance while I note a few 

 particulars of my observations, chiefly as to its flora. 



The Island of Coll. which lies a few miles to the north-west of 

 Mull, is about 14 miles long, by about an average breadth of 2. 1 , 

 miles, and is comparatively low-lying, its highest elevation not 

 reaching 300 feet. Though forming one of the Inner Hebrides, 

 it is, from its position, exposed to the full fury of the Atlantic 



