1 919- Irish Societies. 53 



February 18.— A lecture on " The Warfare of Animals " was 

 delivered by Professor G. H. Carpenter, the President (A, McI. Cleland) 

 in the chair. 



In the course of a description, illustrated by lantern slides, of animal 

 life and habits, Professor Carpenter said that although a study of the 

 structure of animals revealed that weapons were very prominent, the 

 supposed parallelism between the struggle for existence among animals 

 and human warfare was really very slight. There was a great gulf 

 between the struggle for existence as Darwin conceived it and modern 

 warfare. The weapons of the beast of prey were not those of the soldier, 

 but were used principally for procuring food. The warfare of animals 

 was directed more against circumstances and surroundings and drawbacks 

 of life than against other creatures. Nature taught us that final victor}'- 

 was not with the lion but with the lamb, and there was no biological 

 justification for such human warfare as that from which we had just 

 been delivered. 



On the proposition of N. H. Foster, seconded by Professor Yapp, a 

 cordial vote of thanks was passed to Professor Carpenter. 



NOTES. 



BOTANY. 



Asplenium Adiantuin-nig:rum var. acutum. 



Just before my paper on this fern was published in the February number 

 of this Journal (p. 13 supra), I had an unexpected opportunity of visiting 

 the collections at Kew and the British Museum, and can now supplement 

 my account with some notes on the extra- Irish distribution of this plant. 

 As regards Great Britain, the large series of the species in the British 

 Museum shows that a much less amount of variation from the type 

 prevails there than in Ireland. Almost all the specimens from whatever 

 part of England, Wales, or Scotland are normal or nearly so ; the only 

 specimen approaching acutum is from Berkshire (between Luckley and 

 Wokingham) ; it is well on the way to my I . lineare, though not sufficiently 

 extreme to be referred to that form. 



Abroad, A, Adiantum-nigrum has a very wide range over the Old 

 World — from Norway to Cape Colony and the Himalayas, and it is 

 extremely variable. Among the many variants, the specimens referable 

 to var. acutum are readily picked out, and these group themselves, like 

 the Irish forms, around the two extremes which I call f. lineare and 

 f. ovatum. The distribution of these two extreme forms is rather 

 interesting. Of the former, good specimens were noted from Madeira, 

 Canaries, and Lydia. The plant has thus a discontinuous " Lusitanian " 

 range— S.W. Ireland, Atlantic Islands, Eastern Mediterranean. The 

 Lydian example is very interesting. It is labelled " L^^dia : in monte 

 Megosis supra oppidum Tire " and was collected by Bornmiiller in 1906 



