1206 NOTES AND EXHIBITS. 



Mr. Gervase F. Mathew, F.L.S., of H.M.S. Espiegle, exhibited 

 four boxes containing a collection of many hundred Lepidopterous 

 Insects, which he had obtained during his last cruise on the South 

 East Coast of New Guinea. The collection contained a few Microle- 

 pidoptera, but by far the greater part of it consisted of Diurnal 

 Butterflies of the most gorgeous hues and of wonderful variety. 



Dr. Cox exhibited some fine samples of a Mushroom grown 

 at Potts' Point on an artificial bed. The spawn (Mycelium) of 

 these Mushrooms was obtained from a clump of bamboos and was 

 placed in the bed in July last. The mushrooms have when half 

 expanded a strong white membrane reaching from the pileus 

 to the stipes, and when this breaks the mushroom expands. Pro- 

 fessor Stephens considered that the Agaric shown belonged in all 

 probability to the sub-genus Amanita, and that they were, to say 

 the least, suspicious as articles of diet. 



Dr. Cox also exhibited and presented to the Society for safe 

 custody a dried specimen of a plant recently described by Baron 

 Sir F. von Mueller from the mountain region of the Clyde River, 

 and named by him Eriostemon Coxii. The plant is believed to 

 have valuable medicinal properties. 



Mr. E. P. Ramsay, F.R.S.E., exhibited for Mr. E. G. W. Palmer 

 a native Bees' Nest which had been obtained in the neighbourhood 

 of Smithfield. For the last seven years it had been suspended 

 from a branch of a pear tree in Mr. Palmer's garden, and a quart 

 of honey had often been obtained from it, but during the last 

 winter a caterpillar formed its cocoon in the only aperture and so 

 effectually closed it that all the bees were killed. 



Drawings were exhibited of some fossil bones which Mr. R. D. 

 Fitzgerald, F.L.S., had received from Lord Howe's Island. The 

 bones have been forwai'ded to Sir Richard Owen, and are believed 

 to be those of two species of extinct lizards, probably allied to the 

 gigantic horned Megalania and Notiosaurus, which have been 

 found in the Pleistocene deposits in Queensland and New South 

 Wales. 



