PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 149 



3 1st August, 1897. 



Mr. Robert Kidston, F.R.S.E., F.G.S., President, in the chair. 



Reports on excursions to the Botanic Gardens (see page 125) 

 and Cartland Crags (see page 128) were read. 



Mr, William Stewart exhibited the skull of a Hare and the 

 lower jaw of a Boar, lent bj Mr. J. M. Campbell, F.Z.S., illus- 

 trating the law of growth in the teeth. The Hare, which was shot 

 near Lincoln, had, as the result of an accident, developed incisors 

 of an abnormal size, curving spirallv outwards ; while in the jaw 

 of the Boar one of the canine teeth had curved backwards until it 

 had forced its way into the jaw again, in an almost circular 

 direction. The latter specimen came from the South Seas, where 

 the natives, who value such teeth for bracelets, assist the growth 

 by the withdrawal of the opposing upper tusk. 



Mr. Peter Ewing, F.L.S., Yice-President, exhibited a number 

 of plants from the Forfarshire and Perthshire (Breadalbane) 

 Mountains. He stated that for the past twenty -nine years he 

 had regularly visited Ben Lawers, and every year he finds the 

 status of its characteristic plants altering, and evidence of change 

 in the configuration of the mountain. A large patch of Cystopteris 

 montana, Bernh., formerly inaccessible to most botanists, is now 

 comparatively easily got at. A way has also recently been 

 opened up to the place where Woodsia is abundant. Saxi/raga 

 cernua, Linn., and Draha rupestris, R. Br., were only to be seen 

 this year as very small plants, but that might be owing to the 

 backwardness of the season. Gentiana nivalis, Linn., is not so 

 plentiful in many places as it used to be, and it is becoming quite 

 rare on some of the rocks above Loch-na-cat, Sagina nivalis, 

 Fr., is almost, if not altogether, a thing of the past. Splachnum 

 i-asculosum, Linn., has disappeared from three places where it was 

 formerly abundant. Alsine rubella, Schrenk, seems to be disap- 

 pearing, as the plants are very small compared with those 

 formerly obtainable. Plileum alpiiiujn, Linn., is never seen now 

 in the western ravine, and on the rocks above Loch-na-cat it is 

 extremely rare. Juncus casta7ieiis, Sm., has disappeared from 

 some of its stations ; in one of these a single plant being 

 found where hundreds could have been collected some years 



ago. 



