16 Lmrusan Society. 



it available for its important uses, and the various modifications in 

 its construction occurring among the different tribes. He adds also 

 ?. particular description of the arrows and quivers in use among 

 several of the native tribes. 



To this paper was appended the following note by John Joseph 

 Bennett, Esq. F.L.S. 



" Mr. Schomburgk having placed in my hands specimens of the 

 grass which forms the subject of his communication, with a request 

 that (if I should find it to be unpublished) I would describe it, I 

 consulted the publications of Nees von Esenbeck and Kunth, and 

 was at first strongly inclined to suspect that it was identical 

 with the Arundinaria verticillata of those authors ; but a subsequent 

 examination has satisfied me that it is a distinct species of that 

 genus. I have had no opportunity of comparing it with specimens 

 of A. verticillata, but it differs from the descriptions of that species, 

 given by the two eminent botanists above named, in the following 

 particulars. Its leaves are linear, instead of lanceolate, and smooth 

 on both surfaces, instead of scabrous ; the mouth of their sheaths 

 is furnished on either side of the articulation of the leaf with a fringe 

 of long rigid setae, which are not mentioned as occurring in A. verti- 

 cillata ; its locustse are sessile, instead of being pedicelled ; and the 

 hypogynous scales are lanceolate and acute, instead of obovate and 

 obtuse. The following character will therefore serve to distinguish 



the species : — 



Arundinaria Schomburgkii. 



A. foliis linearibus acuminatis laevibus; vaginarum ore utrinque longe 

 setoso, spica simplici pauciflora, locustis sessilibus, squamulis hypogynis 

 lanceolatis acutis." 



January 21, 1840.— Mr. Forster, V.P., in the Chair. 



Mr. Hewett Cottrell Watson, F.L.S. , exhibited specimens of Ca- 

 rum Bulbocastanum discovered by Mr. W. H. Coleman, near Cherry 

 Hinton, Cambridgeshire, and of Seseli Libanotis gathered by the 

 same in a Dean west of the river Cuckmere, near Seaford, Sussex, 

 being the first time it has been observed in that county. 



Mr. Solly, F.L.S., exhibited two splendid drawings executed by 

 Mrs. Withers of a male plant of Encephalartos pungens, which 

 flowered in the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew, in October last. 



Mr. Iliff, F.L.S., exhibited some urate of ammonia voided by the 

 Boa Constrictor at the Surrey Zoological Gardens, in the midst of 

 which were several larva? supposed by Mr. Curtis to be those of the 

 Mvsca Canicularis of Linnseus. Mr. Iliff is of opinion they were 

 voided with the excrements of the Boa, and referred to a case in the 



