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The thanks of the Club were unanimously voted to the donors. 



The Secretary read the report of The Soiree Committee. 



Dr. M. C. Cooke read a paper " On the Dual Lichen Hypothesis." 



The Chairman said he had no need to invite their attention to the very 

 admirable paper which they had just heard, feeling sure that it had already 

 commended itself to them. There were so many points of interest in it 

 that he hardly knew which to refer to ; but it had struck him that 

 Dr. Cooke's remarks as to the selective power of insects did not bear 

 very strongly upon the argument, because it might be said of them that 

 " what was one man's meat was another man's poison." 



Dr. Cooke thought that the Chairman had not quite understood his 

 reference to insects — what he meant to say was that if these two classes 

 of plants were identical, why did not the same insects attack both of them ? 

 If these insects attacked all fungi, then why did they not attack the lichens 

 also, if it were a fact that the lichens were of precisely the same nature ? 



Mr. Charles Stewart said he felt it somewhat presumptuous on bis part 

 to speak at all upon this subject after what they had heard from 

 Dr Cooke, but inasmuch as he had the honour of first bringing this 

 theory before the notice of the Club, he thought that perhaps he might 

 be permitted to make just one or two remarks. In the first place he 

 would submit it as being an open question as to whether a specialist was 

 really the person most likely to take a fair view of what ran counter to 

 his own ideas ? Secondly, it seemed to him that there had been two con- 

 tradictory statements made upon the subject. It had been said that from 

 the Hyphce were developed the Gonidia, and if this were shown to be the 

 case, it would go very far to overthrow the hypothesis. But there was 

 also another statement, that the spores developed in the Asci of a lichen, 

 although they would germinate would not continue to grow, but would form 

 merely an abortive attempt at germination without the assistance of certain 

 green granules to which attention had been already called. The theory was 

 that this was a case of dual existence, and he must say that it was a theory 

 naturally suggestive to a scientific mind. If any one looked at the Asci of 

 the Lichens, and looked also at the Gonidia, although there might not be an 

 absolute identity, yet there was, he thought, a very close resemblance between 

 the former and the Asci of Fungi, and between the latter and Alga3 ; and it 

 should not be forgotten that it had been said that any one of the Gonidia 

 could be caused to go through the life history of the Alga, from which it 

 was supposed to have been derived. For his own part he thought it was at 

 present a balanced question, and one which whilst it was as yet unsettled, 

 was one not to be settled by big words. 



Dr. Braithwaite said he had been very much struck by the theory of 

 Schwendener when first it came under his notice ; he read it carefully and 

 with very great interest, but yet somehow it never seemed to bring with 

 it a conviction of its correctness. Most things brought a kind of convic- 

 tion with them, but somehow to his mind this did not. One thing especially 

 seemed unsatisfactory, and that was, how should these lichens maintain 

 their habits and characters if their existence was explained by this theory. 



