PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY LURING THE QUARTER. 237 



Contributions to the Library. 



Records of the Geological Survey of India, Yol. XIX., Part 3. 



Insects of India (E. Donovan), by Mr. W. Shipp. 



Foreign Butterflies, by Mr. W. Shipp. 



Foreign Moths, by Mr. W. Shipp. 



Reptiles of Sind (J. Murray), by the Author. 



Transactions of the N. S. WaleB Lirnaean Society, Vol. I , Part 1. 



Magazine of Natural History, Vol. XV1IL, Nos. 103 and 104, from 



Mr. W. H. Littledale. 

 Mr. E. L. Barton exhibited one tiger's head and two panthers' heads, mounted 

 by himself. 

 The following papers were then read :— • 



A Matheran Seed-traveller, by Dr. D. MacDonald. 



Links in the Mammalian Chain, by Mr. R. A. Sterndale. 



Pollen Grains, by Dr. Kirtikar. 



a Matheran Seed-traveller. 



Dr. MacDunald said : — " Members of the Natural History Society who have 

 visited Matheran in the hot-weather may have noticed seeds with a beautiful 

 crown of spreading hairs — termed pappus or coma by botanists — carried by the 

 wind, sometimes along the ground, sometimes high in the air. On account of 

 their buoyancy, these wind- wafted seeds are often carried to considerable 

 distances from the parent plant. Several kinds of plants on summit or sides 

 of Matheran Hill produce comose seeds, but perhaps the seeds of which I now 

 phow some specimens are the most beautiful. When I first saw these seeds in 

 May of this year, I could not determine their botanical origin, even approxi- 

 mately ; but when the then Superintendent of Matheran, Dr. MacDougall, 

 kindly ' tained for me some of the leaves of the plant, as well as a few of the 

 maturing fruits, I was able to refer the plant to one of two very closely allied 

 Natural Orders or Families — the Apocynacecs, or Dogbane Order, to which 

 plant so familiar in Bombay as the Allamanda, the Tabernamontana, Vinca 

 rosea, Nerium oleander, Beaumontea grandiflora, and others belong ; or the 

 Aselepiadacece or Milkweed Order, of which the Asclepias curassavica, the 

 Stephanotis, and the Hoya carnosa or Wax-plant are well known in Bombay. 

 These two Orders are very closely allied, and were at one time grouped together 

 under the name Apocynaceaa. The two are now separated, the distinguishing 

 characters of the Asclepiadacese being — (1) the stigma, which has five rounded 

 angles provided with either cartilaginous corpuscles, or a gland which retains 

 the pollen masses, the stalk or caudicle of the pollen masses being attached 

 in this vray to the stigma, and (2) the peculiar pollinia or pollen masses which 

 are developed by the stamens, instead of the ordinary p» lien grains produced by 

 the stamens in the order Apocynaceaa. In the Asclepiads, when the pollen 

 masses adhere to the stigma, the poll?n cells simply push the pollen tubes into 

 the lateral and inferior stigmatic surfaces, and thus self-fertilization is effected." 



Dr. MacDonald then contrasted the pollen masses found in the Natural Order, 

 Aselepiadacece with those in the Order Orchidacece, or Orchid Family, in which 

 the pollen masses possess a viscid gland at the base of the stalk or caudicle. 



