BY THE llEV. J. E. TEXISOX-^VOODS, F.L.S., T.G.S. GGI 



There are no other plant remains in the slate except woody 

 fragments, and the whole is covered with fine scales of silvery 

 mica. I am inclined to the opinion that this is no more than a 

 variety of the European fossil, but lest I should be causing con- 

 fusion by a wrong identification, I give it another name. If. 

 however, we had no other distinction between two species of trees 

 than those which exist between these fossils, we should not be 

 justified in separating them. There may, however, be distinctions 

 in the inflorescence, which have not yet been discovered. 



B. mamilare has been separated by Schimper from the plant 

 wrongly so named by Lindley and Hutton, (See Foss. Flora, pi. 

 188 and 219, vol. o. See also, Schimper, vol. 2, p. 336, B. 

 2)hillipsii.) 



In the Geological Magazine for Jany., 1869 (vol. 6, p. 5, pi. 2, 

 figs. 12, 13) there are figures of rough branches of i?. mamiUare. 

 Also Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 1 ser., vol. iv., plate 19, 

 fig. 9, under the name of Mamillaria desnoyersii, Brong. 



Yinger in his Grenera et Species Plant Foss.. p. 308, regards 

 Brachyphyllum as a Cycad. 



Note on the Cocoaxitt-eatixg Habit of the Birgtjs ix the 



SoLOMox Giiour. 



By H. B. GurPY, M.B., H.M.S. '' Lark." 



Whilst traversing, last September, the belt of screw-pines 

 which borders the beach on the east coast of Malanpaina, the 

 southern island of the Three Sisters, I came upon one of the 

 large cocoanut crabs— a Birgus — closely allied (if not identical) 

 with the well-known Birgus latro of the Philippines. Its length 

 of body, when extended, was about 15 inches, being about 

 3 inches shorter than that of another individual of the same 

 species which I had met with in the previous June in the vicinity 

 of Star Harbour, St. Christoval, at a height of about 300 feet 

 El 



