466 



without some proof by experiment or observation directed to this 

 special object. If Mr. King had such proof he should be glad, to 

 hear it. 



Mr. King said he had noticed that the ectosarc was extended 

 independently of the endosarc, and that in many cases it remained 

 quite quiescent ; the motions were quite distinct one from another. 

 He thought they had quite distinctive attributes. 



Tlie Chairman thought it was evident that Mr. King believed in 

 Mr. Herbert Spencer's theories of the inheritance of acquired 

 characteristics ; not being a specialist in this particular direction he 

 had not been able to bring his mind to believe in the large number 

 of kinds of Amoebae which specialists seemed to find ; but there 

 was in his mind a strong suspicion that many things called species 

 were dependent upon the conditions which surrounded the object at 

 the time it was examined. One thing in Mr. King's remarks 

 struck him as being extremely doubtful, and that was the idea that 

 there was any form of life whatever which was dependent upon 

 some sort of accident, because it appeared to him that Nature had 

 all through a special means of transmitting life, and it was only 

 when the conditions were altered, as, for instance, in the case of an 

 imported plant when one sex only was brought over, that they 

 could be said in any way to depend upon accident. When, for 

 instance, the scarlet runner was first imported it was for the sake 

 of the flowers, because coming from a country where there were no 

 bees it never produced fruit ; but when it was grown here and the 

 bees fertilized it then it produced beans. If there was one thing 

 that was constant throughout Nature it was that every species had 

 its own natural conditions of life and its own mode of reproducing 

 itself. 



Announcements of meetings and excursions for the ensuing 

 month were then made, and members were reminded that the 

 conversazione mentioned at their last meeting would take place on 

 May 4th. 



The following objects were exhibited : — 



Sections of Basaltic Rocks from the\ 



Volcanoes of Mauna Loaand Kilanea, I Mr. G. Smith. 

 Hawaii ... ... ... ... J 



