LIXNEAN SOCIEl'T OF LONDON". 



March 20th, 1919. 



Sir Datid Praix, C.M.G., C.I.E., F.R.S., President, 

 in the Chair, 



The Minutes of the General Meeting of the 6th March, 1919, 

 were read and coutirmed. 



The report of the Donations received since the last Meeting 

 was laid before the Fellows, and the thanks of the Society to the" 

 several Donors were ordered. 



Mr. Pheroshaw Jamsetjee Panday, B.A.(Oxon.), was admitted 

 a Fellow, and Mr. William Robert Sherrin an Associate. 



Mr. Frederick Ormrod Mosley, Miss Dora Lawson, B.Sc. 

 (Liverp.), and Mr. Humphrey Godwin Billinghurst were proposed 

 as Fellows. 



The President announced that the number of Fellows now stood 

 at 701, and that 5 candidates having been proposed, the number 

 of vacancies in the Fellows' List is reduced to four. 



The first paper, by Mr. Fredeeick Lewis, F.L.S., " Notes on a 

 Visit to Kun;idiyapai'awita Mountain, with a List of the Plants 

 obtained, and their Altitudinal Distribution," was read by the 

 Botanical Secretary. 



This curious mountain is nearly due west of the sacred " Adam's 

 Peak," and rises abruptly to an altitude of 5186 feet above the 

 sea, and is surrounded by forest. The summit is small in extent, 

 surrounded by precipices, in the path of the S.W. monsoon, which 

 strikes on this isolated peak and by its force dwarfs the vegetation 

 on it. The annual rainfall on the eastern base is about 230 inches, 

 that on the western side about '3o0 inches. 



The flora appears to be -largely endemic, animal life is prac- 

 tically absent, and wind transport of seeds of those plants which 

 are on the summit seems unhkely. Forty-nine plants were col- 

 lected on the mountain top in one day's visit, and were determined 

 at Peradeniya, and the names are appended to the paper; of 

 these ten only are found outside Ceylon, the remainder being 

 endemic. 



Dr. Bateson added some observations, and the President gave 

 an account of his visits to two islands off the Indian coast. On 

 one of these, Barren Island in the Andaman group, he found that 

 Terminalia Catappa, which usually grows close to the sea, 

 extending to the top of the outer cone, apparently due to the rats 

 feeding on the fruit (the "Country Almonds" of Anglo-Indian 

 speech), which, when disturbed, they carried in their mouths up 

 the slopes. 



