66 Field Naturalists' Club — Proceedings. [voi"^'xxix 



fossil prawns and dragon-flies. Upon the last-named hung 

 an interesting story of how the conditions of air and sea-shore 

 were much the same in the secondary era as at the present 

 day, for the dragon-flies then, as now, were sometimes over- 

 taken by the drenching sea-spray and laid out on the wet fore- 

 shore with wings outspread, where they were speedily covered 

 with a layer of flne mud or ooze, which, in the course of ages, 

 became hardened into the lithographic stone of the artist. 

 The various kinds of fishes, with their early development of 

 scales and teeth derived from simple bony excrescences or 

 tubercles secreted in the skin, came in for a shaie of attention, 

 and the prevalence of the enamel-scaled fishes in the middle 

 period of geological history was noted — a group now nearly 

 extinct, and represented onl\ by a few fresh-water forms, as 

 the Bonj' Pike of North and Central America. The modern 

 types of food-fishes appeared in the early or middle part of 

 the Tertiary, and some fresh (!) herrings (Clupea) were examined 

 dating back to the Miocene period. One of the most inter- 

 esting slabs was that showing numbeis of the Cretaceous, 

 sardine-like little fish, Leptosomus, a shoal of which had 

 evidently been transfixed by the emanation of noxious gases. 

 Other fossils claiming special attention were the excellent 

 reproductions of the earliest known bird, Archaopteryx, the 

 group of the giant sloths and armadillos, and the families of 

 the elephants and the horses, showing what curious and slow 

 changes took place during the Tertiary period in the form and 

 structure of their teeth and feet. Passing on to the gallery 

 of Australian fossils, the concluding part of the talk was given 

 upon the comparatively recently extinct Moa-birds of New 

 Zealand, of which there are two fine skeletons in the Museum, 

 and upon the giant marsupial'- of Australia. Great interest 

 was displayed in the specimens exhibited, and regret was 

 expressed when the time for departure came. 



ELECTIONS. 



On a ballot being taken. Miss M. Mitchell, Glenferrie House, 

 Glenferrie, was elected an ordinary member, and Miss May I. 

 Wise, Guthridge-parade, Sale, as a country member of the 

 Club. 



GENERAL BUSINESS. 



Mr. F. G. A. Barnard pointed out that the date of the annual 

 exhibition of wild-flowers, as printed in the programme of 

 meetings, would be rather late foi some kinds of native flowers, 

 and moved that an exhibition of the various specier of acacia 

 be made the feature of the next (September) meeting. The 

 motion was seconded by Mr. P. R. H. St. John, and carried. 



