2 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE 



Piceas. He showed that the various forms occurrinor from the 

 east to the west of the Coutinent, which had been hitherto con- 

 sidered different species, were doubtless local varieties of only one 

 species, slightly modified according to altitude and the region they 

 inhabit. 



Dr. Francis Day exhibited a Salmon Parr twenty months old, 

 raised at Howietoun from parents whicli had never visited the 

 sea. Dr. Day also showed some coloured drawings made in 

 October 1886 of hybrids raised there. One of these was a cross 

 between the American Charr and the Loch-Leven Trout ; another 

 across between the American and the British Charr; and a third 

 betw( en the last- mentioned hybrid and the Loch-Leveu Trout ; all 

 being fertile. 



There was shown for Mr. W. D' Arcy Godolphin Osborne fresh 

 specimens of a white variety of Crocus nudijlorvs, gathered by 

 him in the neifrhbonrhood of Biarritz, France. This variety was 

 first found by him there in the autumn of 1882, and has been 

 figured by Mr. George Maw in his recent monograph of the 

 genus. 



Mr. E. M. Holmes exhibited examples of Lycoperdon echina- 

 ium, Pers., viz. the young plants, and specimens showing the reticu- 

 late appearance of the peridium left by the fallmg off of the 

 spines. 



Mr. F. P. Pascoe exhibited one of the round olive-green balls 

 from Sicily formed by the action of the sea on fragments of the 

 Posidonia caulinia, and reduced after a few days' exposure to a 

 flat cake-like body densely covered with minute crystals of salt. 

 He also exhibited examples of a remarkable mode of growth 

 of the common Acorn-shell (Bala?iiis). It would appear that 

 several individunl animals had united their shells to form a 

 common tube ; the outer valves of each individual had also more 

 or less lengthened, formino; a series of irregular subsidiary tubes 

 radiating from the apex of the primary one. 



The following papers were read : — 



1. *' Tiie Natural History of the Genus DeroT By Edward 

 C. Bousfield, L.E.C.P. Loud. (Communicated by Dr. J. Murie, 

 F.L.S.) 



2. " Berberidearum Japonise Consjjectus." By Tokutaro Ito. 

 (Communicated by W. T. Thiselton Dyer, C.M.G., F.L.S.) 



3. " On the Genus Lophopus, witli a Description and Eemarks 

 on a new Species from New South AVales." By Stuart 0. Ridley, 

 F.L.S. 



