io8 The Ifish Naturalist. 



BEI.PAST NATURAIy HISTORY AND PhII,OSOPHICAI< SOCIETY. 



March 5. — The President (R. L/I.OYD Patterson; in the chair. Mr, 

 REDFern Kei^IvY lectured on " The Great Mystery of Stellar and 

 Planetary Evolution." 



Dubinin Natur.\i,ists' FiEiyD Ci.ub. 



March 12.— The President (G. H. Carpenter, B.Sc.) in the chair. 

 Prof. J. P. 0'Reii.i,y, C.E., read a paper entitled " The Possible Palaeonto- 

 logical Reading of an Eastern Tradition." The reader drew attention to 

 a statement taken from Bailly's " Lettres sur 1' Atlantic de Platon et sur 

 I'ancienne Histoire de I'Asie " (Paris, 1779), ^^ which the statement was 

 made that Huschenk, grandson of Caiumarath, first King of the Persians, 

 conducted his expeditions on a horse having twelve feet, which, the 

 reader endeavoured to show, might possibly have been one of the three- 

 toed ancestors of the horse. Another tradition told how Tahamuruth, 

 third King of Persia, had for a steed a great bird called Simorg-auka, which 

 the reader suggested may possibly have actually been a bird allied to the 

 Ostrich. Prof. Cole, criticizing the paper, pointed out that the suggestions 

 made by Prof O'Reilly could not be met on the grounds of impossibility, 

 as man was known to have been contemporaneous, for instance, with 

 Hipparion, but he considered that the twelve-toed horse of the legend was 

 more probably a retrogressive sport. Rev. Maxwell Close and the 

 President also spoke. A letter was read from Dr. E. J. M'Weeney 

 regretting his inability to attend and read a paper which stood in his 

 name. 



Mr. D. McArdi^e read a paper on "Adventitious Branching in 

 Liverworts,'' which appears in our present issue. 



Mr. R. lyi,. Praeger exhibited some rare British plants from the 

 Boswell Herbarium. The species shown included Ranunculus reptans^ 

 Elatine Hydropiper (from Belfast), Peucedanum officinale, Erythraa latifolia, 

 Orobanche Picridis, 0. caryophyllacea, Primula scolica, Statice Caspia, Atriplex 

 pedunculata, Carex frigida, Lastrea uliginosa. Professor JOHNSON exhibited 

 a sea-weed, Epicladia Fhisine, Rke., new to Ireland, found on Flustra 

 collected at Rush by Mr. J. E. Duerden. 



Messrs. J. Iv. Huddleston, and G. E. T. Greene, J.P., P\L.S , were 

 elected members of the Club. 



Cork Naturai<ists' Fiei.d Ci,ub. 



November 21. — An Inaugural Address was delivered by the President 

 (Prof. M. M. Hartog, D.Sc). Mr. J. N. Hai^bert's paper, " Insects 

 collected on the joint Clubs' Excursion ofFermoy and Lismore," as read 

 by him at the Dublin N.F.C., was read by the Secretary, after which an 

 hour was pleasantly spent looking through the specimens and micro- 

 scopes brought by members. 



January 23. — The first lecture was given in connection with the Irish 

 Field Club Union by Joseph Wright, Esq., F.G.S., of Belfast, on 

 *' Foraminifera recent and fossil, with special reference to those found in 

 Ireland." The lecture was beautifully illustrated with photographic 

 lantern slides and diagrams. "^ -. 



Miss H. A. Martin, V.P., having kindly consented to give four 

 lectures on structural botany, a special class was formed, and two 

 lectures up to the present have been given on the Morphology and 

 Physiology of the Root and of the Stem. 



