PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 373 
from roots which he had obtained through a friend from the 
Desert of Atacama, North Chili. In the description of the plant 
accompanying the illustration it is stated that “the genus is here 
for the first time figured from a specimen cultivated in Europe.” 
Professor King remarked that the plate conveyed a remarkably | 
truthful representation of this beautiful plant, which attains to a 
height of three feet in its native habitat. The colours of the 
flowers range from bright-yellow to dark-brown. 
Rey. G. A. Frank Knight, M.A., exhibited huge spines of Acacia 
horrida, Willd., obtained by him near the Koonap River, Cape 
Colony, where the tree covers great tracts. 
Mr. Knight also exhibited and read a paper on Ornithorhynchus 
anatinus (Shaw), the Duck-billed Platypus of Australian rivers, 
that “living fossil” which reproduces to-day a type of existence 
elsewhere long extinct. Full of anomalies, a “ complete ana- 
chronism,” with a beaver-like tail, a duck-like beak, the heart of 
a bird, toes webbed for swimming, no adult teeth, the voice of a 
“puppy, and believed at first to be a fraud of the stuffer, It, like 
a reptile or bird, lays eggs, incubates them, and completes its 
motherhood by suckling its young! This animal, a non-placental 
mammal, is especially interesting, as it helps to prove that Aus- 
tralia was cut off from Europe-Asia before the Tertiary period. 
A note by Dr. R. Broom, B.Sc, New South Wales, 
Corresponding Member, was read on the supposed nasal valves of 
the Ornithorhynchus, which are the subject at present of further 
investigation. (See page 317.) 
Professor King exhibited a series of fresh plants received from 
Buckinghamshire. These included the White and the Black 
_ Bryony, climbers which seem to imitate one another, though 
belonging to natural orders widely separated from each other. — 
_ Mr. William Stewart exhibited a large specimen of the fungus 
Polyporus squamosus, Fr., from Cumbernauld, 
257TH JuNE, 1895. 
Professor Thomas King, President, in the chair, 
The report of a joint-excursion with the Geological Society of 
Glasgow to Arrochar, on 15th instant, was submitted, 
(See page 360.) 
