20 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Feb, 



The fourth monthly meeting was held at the society's rooms on 

 Monday evening, December 18 ; the President, Dr. Smallwood, 

 in the chair. 



The following donations were announced and thanks voted to the 

 donors : — 



TO THE MUSEUM. 



A fine specimen of the American deer (Cervus Virginianus), 

 from Mr. W. S. Macfarlane ; seven specimens of Central American 

 birds from Mr. Haig, through Mr. Leeming ; specimen of a South 

 American turtle-dove from Mr. Struthers ; nine specimens of 

 Devonian fossil fishes from Orkney, Scotland, from Mr. Barnston. 



PROCEEDINGS. 



A paper on the natural history of Sanguinaria Canadensis or 

 Canada blood-root, by Dr. Gribb, of London, was read by the 

 Secretary. 



Principal Dawson afterwards exhibited a number of specimens 

 of flint implements and fossils from St. Acheul, near Amiens, and 

 made some observations on the mode of their occurrence in the 

 * high level gravel,' in the valley of the Somme. He referred to 

 the investigations of Boucher-de-Perthese, Lyell, and Prestwich, 

 and quoted a portion of the description of the locality by the 

 latter geologist. He stated that he had come to the following 

 conclusions, derived from an examination of the locality and of 

 the specimens, more especially those in the collection of Mr, 

 Prestwich : 



1. The implements cannot be considered so much as character- 

 istic of a particular age as of particular work. They are not 

 spears, or arrows, or hatchets, but picks and diggers, adapted for 

 digging in the earth, or hollowing wooden canoes. A consideration 

 of the implements of the American stone age renders it in the high- 

 est degree improbable that the makers of these tools did not pos- 

 sess also stone arrows, spears, knives, and other implements. The 

 application of the idea of an older and ruder stone age to such im- 

 plements is gratuitous, and contradicted by the evidence afforded 

 by American antiquities. 



2. There are some reasons which induce the belief that these 

 implements have been used in burrowing small horizontal adits into 

 the gravel beds of St. Acheul, in search of flints. In this case they 

 may not be of great antiquity, though certainly older than the 

 Roman occupation of GauL 



