20 president's address. 



in our Museum, will, I am sure, be glad that the compliment of 

 Honorary Membership has been willingly accepted by one on 

 whom it is so worthily bestowed. The valuable experiments of 

 Professor Phillips, at JMonkwearmouth Colliery, to ascertain the 

 temperature of the earth, are so nearly allied in their general 

 nature, and so alike in the care and exactness of the experiments 

 themselves, that they may properly be placed in connection with 

 the researches of Professor Airey ; and from the deep and dark 

 recesses of Ilarton and JMonkwearmouth Collieries, the world 

 may be enlightened with results of vast importance in Physical 

 Geography and xistronoiaical Science — the liighest of all depart- 

 ments of natural knowledge ; and of tliese ijivestigations, it may 

 be indeed said, tliat they are wortliy of far higlier honours than 

 it is in tlie power of any local institution to bestow. 



An Evening Meeting of the Club vf as held in this Institution, 

 on the 15th Marcli, 1855, when Mr. Thomas John ]3old exhibited 

 two cases of Hymenopterous insects, the major part of which were 

 local specimens — one filled with Fossores, or sand and wood-wasps, 

 and the otlier with examples of the MelUfica, or Bees. He read 

 a paper illustrative of the habits of the former, "whose economy," 

 he remarked, "was exceedingly interesting and varied, some of the 

 species storing up caterpillars, others flies, a few spiders, one or two 

 beetles and bees, whilst several make use of Aphides, the larva of 

 plant-bugs, and other insects, as provision for their young, which 

 are generally deposited in cells formed in sandj'- soil, or in bur- 

 rows made in wood." 



Their various stratagems to secure their prey, their wonderful 

 perseverance in transporting it, in spite of every obstacle, to the 

 place of (in many cases) its living sepulture, were dwelt on at 

 considerable length ; and Mr. Bold concluded his paper b}'" some 

 remarks on the wonderful adaptation of "means to an end," exhi- 

 bited by these insects ; and expressed his belief that they, as well 

 as every other work of the great Creator, were most certainly not 

 beneath the notice of us his creatures. 



Mr. D. Oliver, jun., read a memorandum of an Abnormal 

 Development of Tubers in the Potato. 



In this singular case, the axes originating from the "eyes" of 



