74 PROCEEDINGS OK THE 



certain sjpct'ics of Foh/povus bearing a sclerotium possessing the 

 structure of P</e//j/«ia cocos; but it was doubtful whether the 

 Polijporus represented the fructilicatiou of the Pachyma or was 

 merely parasitic on it (see p. 102.) 



i\[r. J. E. Ilartiug exhibited a live so-called siugiug-niousc 

 captured at Maidenhead. With regard to the cause usually 

 assigned for this phenomenon, viz. some obstruction or malform- 

 atioa of the trachea, Prof. Stewart stated that he had observed 

 alive, and dissected when dead, a similar specimen and had found 

 no trace of any organic disease or malformation. 



Sir Charles Sawle, Bart., exhibited a specimen of the Little 

 Green Herou {Butorides virescens) of North America, which had 

 been shot by his keeper at Penrice, St. Austell, Cornwall, in 

 October last. Mr. J. E. Hartiug suggested various ways in which 

 the bird might have reached England, and observed that the 

 larger American Bittern (Botai/rus Jentiginosus) had been met 

 with some five-and-twenty or thirty times in the British Islands, 

 and, strange to say, had been first described and named by an 

 English naturalis^t, and a Fellow of this Society, Colonel George 

 Montagu (who obtained a specimen of the bird in Dorsetsiiire), a 

 year before it was described by Wilson as a native of the United 

 States. 



The following papers were read : — 



1. " On some Micro-chemical Reactions of Tannin." By 

 Spencer Moore, F.L.S. 



2. " On tlie Tongue of the British Hymenoptera Anthophila.' 

 By E. Sanuders, E.'L.S. 



May 1st, 1890. 



John Gilbert Baker, F.E.S., Vice-President, in the Chair. 



The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed. 



John Henry Garrett, Esq., and John Young, Esq., were elected 

 Fellows. 



Dr. Eduard von Eegel, St. Petersburg, and Sereuo Watson, 

 Cambridge, Massachusetts, were elected Foreign Members. 



Mr. R. Miller Christy exhibited and made remarks on specimens 

 of the so-called Bardfield Oxlip (Primula elatior, Jaeq.), which 

 grows alnindantly not only in the neighbonrhood of Bardfield, 

 Essex, but over a considerable area to the north and west of it. 



Mr. Buffham exhibited under the microscope specimens of 

 Mi/ris/rirJiia clavceformis with pluriloeular sporangia, and the 

 conjugation of Tihahdonemn arcuatum found upon Zostem 

 marina. 



