NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 1] 



injury was about four years old, and the whole tree perhaps ten 

 years. It continued to grow both above and below the wound 

 until the last season, when the upper portion died. The whole of 

 the section between the horizontal tier of branches above the gird- 

 ling and the tier below, a space of about eighteen inches, died the 

 same season with the girdling. He now exhibited a portion of 

 the trunk with part of the stem, which died the year of girdling; 

 and part of the piece which had grown above, and died last year. 

 There were four concentric rings of wood in the former and 

 eight in the latter, showing that it had made four annual circles 

 of wood after the complete girdling. 



He then observed that we might assume that the vital functions 

 could scarcely be carried on between the upper portions of the tree 

 and lower, if the intervening cells were dead. He supposed the 

 cells forming the annual concentric masses of wood had a longer 

 period of vitality in some species of trees than in others. In many 

 trees it was well know T n that such a girdling as that performed on 

 the pine would destroy them in one season. A recent examina- 

 tion of a trunk of Paulownia led him to believe that in that tree 

 the cells of the annual circles lived but two years. It was probable 

 that even in the pine famity the period of vitality might vary with 

 different species. In the Rocky Mountains of Colorado he had seen 

 many hundreds of trees of Pinus ponderosa which had the whole 

 of the bark for about six feet from the ground stripped from the 

 trees for the purpose of getting at the inner bark, which was used 

 as food by the Ute Indians; yet he saw no trees which indicated 

 that they' had been destroyed by this heavy girdling process. 

 In the case of the Austrian pine, however, though the formation 

 of wood went on above the girdled portion, growth was not as 

 vigorous as before. The first season after the young shoots were 

 about one foot in length; but these annually decreased, until last 

 year they were but two inches. 



Prof. Cope exhibited the cranium of a humped-backed whale 

 from the Caribbean Sea, obtained by Dr. Goes, of St. Bartholomew's, 

 and presented to the Academy through the liberality of Messrs. 

 Wm. S. Yaux and Isaac Lea. He pointed out that while the 

 scapula and cervical vertebrae were of the type of the true Meg- 

 apterse, the development of the coronoid process of the mandible 

 was comparable to that seen in Balsenoptera. The orbital plates 

 of the frontal are rather wider than in M. longimana. The species 

 was named Megaptera bellicosa. Its size was about that of the 

 31. longimana, but the flippers were shorter. A full description 

 appeared in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical 

 Society for 1871. 



Prof. Cope exhibited a portion of the skeleton of a large cro- 

 codile from the cretaceous green sand of New Jersey, belonging 

 to the genus Holops. The teeth were smooth, cylindric, acute, 

 1872.] 



