NOTES AND EXHIBITS. 239 



River, N.S.W., and from Auburn fruiting specimens of A. pubes- 

 cens, a species of which the characters of the fruit have not been 

 recorded. 



Mr. Hedley exhibited a specimen of Nautilus pompiluf.s found 

 by Mr. Whitelegge stranded on the beach at Curl Curl Lagoon, 

 near Sydney, and he remarked that instances of this species drift- 

 ing ashore on our coast had been recorded by Mr. Brazier, in the 

 Catalogue of Marine Shells of Australia and Tasmania, p. 18. It has 

 also been noticed by Mr. Johnston as wrecked on the Tasmanian 

 coast. On the Queensland seaboard the speaker had frequently 

 remarked it. There it is highly prized by the aborigines, who 

 trade the shells as ornaments from tribe to tribe ; the time for its 

 occurrence is said by the natives to coincide with the blossoming 

 of the Bloodwood tree (Eucalyptus corymhosa). Associated with 

 the Pearly Nautilus among the sea-drift on the northern coast are 

 cocoanuts, so fresh as to be eagerly devoured by the blacks, aud 

 pumice stone. The nuts might have floated from any tropical 

 island in the Pacific ; the Nautilus shells are derivable from ,the 

 narrower limits of the Solomons, the Fijis, and the New Hebrides, 

 while the pumice would seem to be the product of the active 

 volcanoes of the New Hebrides. The agent which strews these 

 foreign ]>roducts on Australian coasts is probably not an ocean 

 current, but the north-east trade-wind. 



Mr. J. Mitchell, Narellan, contributed the following " Note on 

 the discovery of the genus Estheria in the Upper Coal Measures 

 of N.S.W." :— 



On July 3rd inst., from beneath the second coal seam at Rellambi, 

 in a cherty rock I obtained a very good specimen of the above, 

 associated with Glossopteris linearis and G. broioniana (? ). It is 

 worthy of note that this Estheria occurs associated with the same 

 typical species of Glossopteris in the Illawarra district as the allied 

 genus Leaia is found associated with in the Newcastle district ; 

 that the character of the rocks in each case is identical or nearly 

 so, and that the relative positions as compared with the coal 

 seams in each locality are equally in concurrence. 



