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excepting that the tubercles are tinged with yellow at their 

 extremities, and the summits of the pyramids are brown. 



Dr. Dickinson remarked upon the interest attached to this 

 class of plants, linking, as they do, the fossil and living floras 

 of our globe, and the two grand divisions of the vegetable 

 kingdom, the Endogens and Exogens ; besides, they furnish 

 in the sliape of sago a large quantity of food. 



Dr. Thomson exhibited a fine model, in very transparent 

 rock crystal, of the great Indian diamond the Koh-i-noor, or 

 Mountain of Light. 



Mr. Padley then read a paper on the Utility of Early 

 Scientific Education. 



The paper begun on the 27th January was now concluded, 

 entitled — 



ON THE EEET OE INSECTS, 



By Thomas Inman, Esq., M.D. 



This paper was originally intended to refute the generally 

 received opinion that the insect tribes were enabled to walk 

 against gravity, and up smooth perpendicular surfaces, by 

 means of a suctorial apparatus. 



As the subject grew under my consideration, the first 

 intention was altered, and I resolved to give as full an account 

 of the anatomical structure of the feet as possible, and leave 

 my views as to their character to develop themselves naturally. 



I propose, in the first place, to give a description of the 

 principal varieties of feet I have met with, and the purposes 

 for which certain modifications are adopted. "We can then 

 trace the history of the suctorial theory, detail the experiments 

 and observations by which it has been overthrown, and con- 

 clude by showing that the new theory (or, as it is in fact, the 

 oldest one revived) receives full corroboration from the powers 

 and habits of larger creatures, whose motions we can readily 

 notice with the naked eye. 



^JC 



