lO PKOCEEDINGS OF THE 



Mr. H. W. Monckton, PX.S., exhibited some lantern-slides 

 showing a large Ammonite in the Kimmeridge Clay at tSwanage, 

 and several views taken at the Portland Oyster-bed at Tilly Whim 

 and the Purbeck Oyster-bed in Durleston iay. 



Some remarks thereon were made by Mr. E. K. Sykes, P.L.S. 



The President, whilst demonstrating the property possessed by 

 certain vegetable liquids, such as coco-nut milk and the juice of 

 the pineapple and the potato, to cause the oxidation ol guaiacum 

 tincture in the presence of hydrogen peroxide, a blue colour being 

 produced, drew attention to the recent researches of Kaciborski on 

 the subject. Eaciborski has made the interestiug discovery that 

 certain tissues of the plant-body, more particularly the sieve-tubes 

 and the laticilerous tissue, contain some substance, to which he 

 gives the name lejjtomin, which likewise causes guaiacum to turn 

 blue in the presence of hydrogen peroxide, and has gone on to 

 inter that this lej)tcmin may be regarded as discharging in the 

 plant a lunction analogous to that of hamoglobin in the animal 

 body. The President urged, against this assumption, that although 

 both leptomin and haemoglobin give the guaiacum reaction, jet this 

 lact does not prove that leptomin can combine with oxygen, and 

 can act as an oxygen-carrier in the organism, in the manner which 

 is so characteristic of hamoglobin ; and that therefore the sug- 

 gested analogy between the two substances is at least premature. 



The following paper was read and discussed : — 



" On the Necessity lor a Provisional Nomenclature for those 

 forms of life which cannot be at once ai ranged in a natural 

 system." By E. M. Bernard, M.A., F.L.S. 



[Abstract.'] 



Taking the Stony Corals as an illustration, the author shows how 

 impossible it is to classily them into " species " in the present state 

 of our knowledge (1 ) of the living forms themselves, ana (2) of what 

 we should mean by the term " species." He finds himself compelled 

 to invent some method of naming them which shall enable their 

 natural history to be written, so far as it can be discovered, without 

 at the same time having to pretend that, in so doing, the specimens 

 are being classified in the modern evolutionary sense, that is, 

 according to their true genetic afhnities. This " natural order " 

 can only be based upon an exhaustive study of all the discoverable 

 variations, and only then will it be possible to arrange these varia- 

 tions into natural groups or " species." P"urther, this study, if its 

 results are to be trustworthy, must have had regard not only to the 

 stiuctural details of the specimens, but also to their natural con- 

 ditions of exittence, in order that all tliote variations which are 

 purely accidental and adajjtational, e,g., due to special currents, 

 or to iaNouiallc or unfavourable positions on the reef, may be 



