Fcbruarv 2jth, /po^.] PROCEEDINGS. xvii 



Ordinary Meeting, February 25th, igo8. 

 Professor H. B. Dixon, M.A., F.R.S., President, in the Chair. 



The thanks of the members were voted to the donors of 

 the books upon the table. 



Dr. W. E. HoYLE, exhibited several well-preserved examples 

 of fossil insects which were sent to the Manchester Museum 

 from Shiobara, Japan, by Dr. Marie C. Stopes. Three were 

 Diptera, one being probably a Calypterate, whilst another was a 

 remarkably well-preserved mosquito probably of the family 

 Culicidae, another appeared to be a Culicid larva, whilst the 

 remaining specimen strongly resembled a Machilis. They were 

 all derived from 'J'ertiary deposits and were probably of 

 Pleistocene age. No systematic work, however, seems to have 

 been done as yet on these strata. 



Mr. T. A. Coward, F.Z.S., read a paper entitled " Notes 

 on the Greater Horseshoe Bat {Rhi?iolophns ferrum- 

 equinum) in captivity," which is printed in the Memoirs. 



The Chair was taken at this point by Mr. Francis 

 Nicholson, F.Z.S. 



Miss Mary McNicol, M.Sc, read a paper entitled "On 

 Cavity Parenchyma and Tyloses in Ferns,' of which the 

 following is an abstract. 



Cavity parenchyma, a tissue replacing to a greater or less 

 degree, the protoxylem of the petiolar bundles, has been recorded 

 in all the large groups of true Ferns, and also in the Water-fern 

 Alarsilia. In Miaolcpia, one of the Polypodiaceae, which 

 represents a typical example, there is in the leafstalk a single 

 curved bundle with slightly hooked ends : in each bundle there 

 are generally five or six protoxylem groups, and of these one is 

 found at each hook of the bundle, the other three or four 

 lying in intermediate positions. The tissue is formed by 

 the enlargement of the cells of the parenchymatous layer 

 surrounding the xylem : these cells press in between the 



