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PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 295 
spicuous reddish masses, which could hardly be overlooked. (3) 
Herberta adunca (Dicks.), Gray, which grows in places similar to 
the preceding and is much like it at a distance, as it also grows in 
large reddish masses. It is stated (op. cit.) to occur in the North 
Welsh, Lake, East and West Highland Provinces, and in Ireland. 
It is rather common in Moidart, and is probably to be found in 
many paris of the West Coast. 
Mr. Anderson Fergusson exhibited the following Coleoptera from 
Ailsa Craig :—Silpha thoracica, Linn., Pyrrhus pilula, Linn., 
Coccinella septempunctata, Linn., Otiorhynchus blandus, Gyll., O. 
rugifrons, Gyll. 
Rey. A. S. Wilson, M.A., B.Sc., read a paper entitled “Self 
Irrigation in Plants, with Remarks on Animals inhabiting the 
Axils of Leaves.”* 
A paper entitled “ Past Distribution, Present Migration, and 
Dispersal of Species in Scotland,’ by Mr. J. A. Harvie-Brown, 
F.R.S.E., F.Z.8., M.B.0O.U., was read. The author referred to 
the former land-connections of Great Britain as urged by geologists, 
and the evidence of organic remains, as tending to show and prove 
the same. JDispersals are going on at the present time under the 
observation of ornithologists along certain lines of advance, but a 
much longer series of observations than is at present available will 
be required before absolute certainty can be reached regarding the 
past and present dispersal of species. Reference was made to the 
case of the Capercaillie which has been separately worked out in 
detail in Mr. Harvie-Brown’s The Capercaillie in Scotland 
(Edin., 1879). This bird, having been restored from a Continental 
source, cannot be held to be dependent for any extension of its 
range here, on an annual migration of its kind. While the 
Capereaillie had been extinct in this country, the Squirrel, which 
was next referred to, is not believed to have been utterly exter- 
minated, although it had nearly shared the Capercaillie’s fate. 
Unlike the Capercaillie, the Squirrel, having been reintroduced in 
a number of localities, elements of difficulty enter into the study 
of its dispersal, but these have been dealt with in a previous essay 
by Mr. Harvie-Brown on The History of the Squirrel in Great 
Britain (Edin. 1881). The Crested Titmouse was then referred 

*In Knowledge, Vol. XXI., 1898, this paper is printed in another form. 
