have several times been captured on our coasts. It is very rapacious, 

 and swims with great rapidity by means of its powerful fluke-like tail. 

 Any wounded fish in its neighbourhood are instantly attacked, and the 

 rapidity with which its parrot-like beak cuts into and kills its prey ia 

 astonishing. A few years back one of these cuttle fish was exhibited in 

 Hobart Town, and was described by an anonymous writer as belonging to 

 the genus Ouychoteutkis, but this was undoubtedly an error, as the hook- 

 like processes on the long tentacles, which are the distinguishing mark of 

 the Onychotenthidce^ and from which the name is derived, are absent in 

 this species.] 



The only donation to the library was a work by Fleetwood Buckle, Esq., 

 M.D., of H.M.S. Liverpool, on the "Vital and Economical Statistics of 

 the Hospitals, Infirmaries, &c., of England and Wales," presented by the 

 author, per Dr. E. S. Hall. 



In reference to the nest of the Sparrow (Presentation No. 12), Mr. 

 Allport remarked, that he was, at first, adverse to the introduction of these 

 birds, but for some time back, he had reason for changing his mind. He 

 found, so far as his observation had as yet extended, that wherever the 

 Sparrow came, it drove away the White Eye (Zosterops dorsalisj^ a most 

 destructive bird to fruit. 



Mr. Graves had a better opinion of the White Eye than Mr. Allport, 

 and had no doubt, that its good qualities were greater than the bad. The 

 benefit which these, and many of our smaller, and comparatively un- 

 known birds conferred on our farms and gardens, by destroying noxious 

 insects, &c., was incalculable. As an addition to our insectivorous birds, 

 he had himself liberated some Canaries, which already had progeny, and 

 if spared by their enemy the cat, would, he thought, become thoroughly 

 acclimatised. 



Mr. M. Allport called attention to the presentation of the " Sea Hare " 

 (No. 20), by Mr. Francis Smith (son of the Chief Justice), which is of 

 peculiar interest, as being another example of the manner in which forms 

 of animal life of the lower types are reproduced at opposite ends of the 

 world. The present specimen is of the Genus Aplysia, and so closely 

 resembles the English creature Aplysia punctata, as to be all but identical 

 — the Tasmanian form being the larger. Its true position amongst the 

 mollusca is beautifully exemplified by the rudimentary shield — like shell 

 which is buried in the tissues of the back, and serves as a guard to the 

 delicate branchial organs of the creature. (This shell, dissected out, was 

 exhibited to the meeting.) Mr. Allport expressed a hope that others of 

 our youth would follow the good example set by Mr. Smith in forwarding 

 to the Museum that which struck him as being new or curious, instead of 

 casting it aside without enquiry, or heed to its scientific value. 



Presentation No. 31 is interesting, as proving the former existence on 

 the main land of the larger carnivorous marsupials now found living in 

 Tasmania. In his paper on Mr. Krefft's " Notes on the Fauna of Tas- 

 mania," read before a meeting of this Society, Mr. Allport pointed out 

 the probability that the Dingo fCanis dingo) had usurped the position of 

 the Tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalusj and the Devil fSarcojMlus ursinusj 

 on the main land ; and that the absence of the Dingo in Tasmania ex- 

 plained their continued existence in the latter colony. 



The Secretary read a paper,* entitled "Contributions to the Phytography 

 of Tasmania," by Baron F. Von Miieller, C.M.G., F.R.S., &c. The paper 

 was accompanied by notices of upwards of a hundred plants, many of 

 them hitherto undescribed, observed by the author in the region of Mount 

 Field, &c. 



" This paper is tlie second on the same subject contributed by Baron Von MUeller, 

 for the first see Trans, lloyal Soc. Tasmania for 18G8, p. 7. 



