Cbe Ulctoriatt naturaltsi 



Vol. XXIV.— No. 3. JULY 4, 1907. No. 283. 



FIELD NATURALISTS' CLUB OF VICTORIA. 



The twenty-seventh annual meeting of the Club was held in the 

 Royal Society's Hall on Monday evening, loth June, 1907. 



The president, Mr. F. G. A. Barnard, occupied the chair, and 

 about 60 members and visitors were present. 



REPORTS. 



A report of the Club's visit to the Geological Galleries of the 

 National Museum on Saturday, 25th May, was furnished by the 

 leader, Mr. F. Chapman, A.L.S., who stated that twelve members 

 attended. Having made an inspection of the restoration of the 

 skeleton of Diprotodon, recently set up in the lower hall of the 

 Museum, and also of the instructive series of casts showing the 

 progressive stages of types of the hovse family, the party were con- 

 ducted through the Mineralogical and Palseontological Galleries 

 upstairs. Particular attention was paid to the Australian minerals, 

 rocks, and fossils ; and the fine zeolites, agates, and quartzes came 

 in for a large share of attention. In the Australian fossil collection 

 the gypsum-replacements of Tertiary shells were pointed out, and 

 some interesting features regarding the uniformity in the direction 

 of cleavage in the specimens were noticed. The microscopists 

 were interested in the structures seen in kerosene and other 

 shales due to vegetable origin, from New South Wales and 

 Tasmania : and also in the spicular structures in the curious 

 sponge-like organism, Receptaculites. What short time remained 

 for the foreign and general Palaeontology was devoted principally 

 to the series of fossils — mammals to plants — in the large wall- 

 cases, the arrangement of which had only just been completed. 

 Amongst the more noticeable of these specimens are the model 

 of the Sabre-toothed Cat, the fine skull of the Cave Bear, and the 

 two beautiful casts of the only known examples of the toothed 

 bird, Archseopteryx, the originals of which are in London and 

 Berlin. The lithographic stone in which the last-named fossils 

 were found has also yielded many remains of delicately structured 

 fishes and insects, of which the Museum possesses an excep- 

 tionally large collection. A selection of these latter have now 

 been placed on view in the new wall-cases, which contain 

 especially striking examples of insects such as fossil Dragon-flies, 

 Water-bugs, and an ally of the " Walking-sticks." The fossil 

 plants include examples of the recently erected group of the 

 Pteridospermeae, or earliest seed-bearers, and these, with others of 

 interest, were pointed out to the members. 



