282 THE NATURAL HISTOEY EETIEW, 



To the Post-glacial period Mr. Jamieson referred that of the 

 formation of the submarine forest-beds, which he considered was 

 succeeded by a 8econd Period of Depression, and this again by the 

 elevation of the land io its present position. It is in the old 

 estuary beds and beaches formed during the Second Period of De- 

 pression that the author finds the first traces of Man in Scotland, 

 while the Shell-mounds with chipped flints he referred to the same 

 epoch as the blown sand and beds of peat, namely to the most recent 

 period, during which the land was raised to its present level. 



Mr. Jamieson described in great detail the deposits representing 

 each of these periods, and concluded his paper with lists of shells 

 from the different beds, showing the percentage of the species that 

 are now found in the British, Southern, Arctic, N.E. American, and 

 N. Pacific regions. 



January 2^tli, 1865. 



The following communications were read: — 1. ''Notes on the 

 Climate of the Pleistocene epoch of New Zealand." By Julius 

 Haast, Ph.D., F.G.S. — The main feature in this communication was a 

 notice of the remains of Dinornis in the moraines of the extinct 

 glaciers of New Zealand. In support of the author's opinion that the 

 extinction of that bird was due to the agency of man at a somewhat 

 recent date, it was observed that the present Alpine flora furnished 

 a large quantity of nutritious food quite capable of sustaining the 

 life even of so large a creature ; and as the fruits of these plants 

 were at present applied to no apparent purpose in the economy of 

 nature, the author argued the former existence of an adequate 

 amount of animal life to prevent an excessive development of vege- 

 tation. This part, he considered, was played by the Dinornis. 



2. " On the Order of Succesion in the Drift-beds in the Island 

 of Arran." By James Bryce, M.A., LL.D., F.G.S. — In a paper 

 read last year before the Koyal Society of Edinburgh, the Eev. R. 

 B. Watson described all these beds as Boulder-clay, and did not 

 assign the Shells v/hich he had discovered in them to any particular 

 part of the deposit. Dr. Bryce dissented from this view, and in 

 this paper pointed out the various causes of error likely to mislead 

 an observer in examining such accumulations. He then described 

 the various sections of the deposits, and showed that the lowest bed 

 is a hard tough unstratified clay, full of striated, smoothed, and 

 polished stones of all sizes, but totally devoid of fossils, and that it 



