42 



iMtroJuced into the neighbouiliood of Hereford rather extensively, aaJ in a very 

 peculiar way. The scrapings from the sheep skins imported from South America 

 have lately been sold as manure from the skin yards. The heaps of this refuse, 

 when mixed with lime and other materials for dressing the land and left to ripen, 

 have been found to be covered with what was called "a new kind of clover with 

 a yellow blossom"— or, where the manure has been used, it has sprung up in the 

 fields and grown moat luxuiiantly. 



In the Slimmer of 18G7 a gentleman near Hereford manured for swedes with 

 this skin-yard refuse. The swedes were eaten off, and barley and clover sown 

 in the spring of 1868. The hot dry summer of last year made the clover miss, 

 and in the autumn, after harrowing, the scarlet trifolium (Trifolium incarnatumj 

 was sown over it. This spring the ground has been well covered, but the trifolium 

 only formed one-fourth of the crop ; the other three-foui-ths was formed by this 

 "foreign clover," and in some places it was growing so luxuriantly as to be esti- 

 mated at nearly two tons to the acre. In this instance it answered very well, but 

 where the manure has been used in hop-yards and with some other crops, the 

 Medick has been most troublesome. In South America it is one of the most 

 common weeds, and an examination of the seed vessel explains readily enough 

 how it becomes attached to the wool of sheep, and when once attached how 

 difficult it is to get rid of it. The seed vessel is arranged in a spiral manner, so 

 as to form a small compact ball, the size of a large pea, and it is fringed with long 

 bristles pointing alternately different ways. Its leaflets are inversely heai-tshaped, 

 and from the black spot in the centre of each, the plant takes its distinctive name. 



Some fine cells of a solitary Mason bee, 



OsMiA BicoKNis (Beaumer), 

 were next sent round the table for inspection. Each one consisted of sand and 

 earth in masses or pellets, agglutinised together when moist, so as to form an oval 

 cell, perfectly smooth internally but with a rough external surface. 



" Is there not art through all the works of Nature ? " 

 They were taken from beneath the tUes of an outhouse at Haven, in the Forest 

 of Deerfold. The cells were empty, that is, they merely contained the remains 

 of the cocoon, of a gum-like silk, spun by the larva. This particular kind of 



Mason bee is a scarce one. 



Trichids Fasciatus. Linn. — The Bee Beetle. 



Dr. M'Cdllough exhibited several specimens of this interesting beetle taken 

 from rotten alder stumps on the banks of the Monnow. It was formerly a great 

 rarity, and its habitat was " South Wales," but it has become common in collec- 

 tions since the favourite station for it at Kannoch, in Perthshire, was discovered. 

 It exists there in abundance. 



K. Rhys Jones, Esq., of Cardiff, said he had found the larvfe four years 

 since on decayed alder and willow stumps on the banks of the Ely and Taff, near 

 Cardiff, and had afterwards obtained the perfect insect in the same locality. 



