to6 The Irish Naturalist. [April, 



the entophytic filaments so as to decide if the plants on one host are 

 isolated or put into organic connection by means of these filaments, 

 which pass from the basal region of the cushion and traverse for some 

 distance the tissues of the host plant. This is of interest as bearing on 

 the propagation of the parasite. 



Mr. W. N. ALLEN showed drawings of Radida Carringtoni and Kadula 

 Holtii which he made for Messrs. M'Ardle and Lett's paper on Rare 

 Hepaticse collected at Tore Waterfall, Killarney, in 1897. The figure of 

 Radula Carringtoni 'is interesting on account of the perianth and capsule 

 being previously unknown, the plant never having been found in fruit 

 before ; there are figures of one of the amentse which bear the anthe- 

 ridia x 20, branches showing the peculiar lobule, and a portion of 

 leaf x 250, showing cells. The drawing of Radula Holtii shows the plant 

 natural size, and the same magnified 20 diameters showing the inversely 

 cone-shaped or trumpet-shaped perianth, mode of branching, and leaves 

 with rounded lobules one-eighth the size of the lobe, which is sharply 

 divergent from the fold of the lobule; the latter character is unique 

 among European Radula. 



Mr. G. PiM showed a section of an aerial root of Cereus triangularis 

 growing under abnormal conditions in a damp hot-house in the Trinity 

 College Gardens. To the naked eye, the living root was in places 

 covered with apparently a mycelium of some fungus, but the micro- 

 scope did not confirm this view. The section showed a curious growth 

 external to the cortex of the root proper, and consisting of two or three 

 layers of large spongy cells, rather thick-walled, and readily breaking 

 away from each other and from the cortex forming a velamen. From the 

 outer cells of the velamen in places there was a dense growth of very 

 delicate hairs, which gave rise to the apparent mycelium, and which 

 occasionally " felted" together contiguous strands of the root. By way 

 of comparison a section of root of Anthurium was shown ; this was 

 densely tomentose, but the hairs distinctly originated in the external 

 cortical layer, and there was nothing at all comparable with the velamen 

 of the Cereus root. 



Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society. 



March 14 — A Lecture was given by J. Lorrain Smith, M A. M.D. 

 on the subject, " Pathogenic Bacteria, with special reference to the 

 Typhoid Bacillus." The paper was illustrated by actual specimens and 

 by lantern views. 



Belfast Naturalists' Field Club. 



February 22 —Professor Symington, F-R.S.E., of Queen's College, 

 Belfast, delivered a lecture on "Whales ; the significance of their struc- 

 ture and development in connection with theories as to their origin." 

 The Professor stated that in their struggle for existence numerous 

 mammals belonging to widely-separated orders have been driven to 



