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21 



magnificent collection of agates through all their phases, from their 

 natural state up to their final polishing by the art of the lapidary. 

 He had collected th(>m at or near Oberstein, a primitive town in 

 the Grand Duchy of Oldenburgh, and read an interesting and 

 elaborate paper descriptive of the methods by which the stones are 

 procured and prepared, until they appear in the well-known 

 ornaments. 



Combats of /he Queens of the Honey -Bee. — A paper by Major 

 Munn was read. Eeferring to his observations at the last meeting 

 on the stings of the worker-bee and queen-bee, he now gave the 

 result of his experimental observations on the deadly fights between 

 the queens. When two of them were put together into a bottle 

 they fought at once, and the conquered one soon gave the death-cry, 

 a sort of pip, pip, and the conqueror, having let the conquered go, 

 proceeded to settle her own wings and to clean her antennae. In 

 upwards of a dozen such combats the poison was fatally introduced 

 into the spiracles under the wings, by a sort of smearing process, 

 and produced death in about twenty minutes, though when the 

 poison was only applied by the victor to the abdominal spiracles 

 of ihe vau(juished the latter languished for some hours. Sometimes 

 u single queen, like a game cock, would be victorious in two fights, 

 one immediately after the other. 



Herniuphroditism and excellence as Bee-provendor of Petasites 

 fragrans — Mr. Gulliver produced numerous specimens now in fuU 

 flower in order to demonstrate the true sexual character of this 

 species, and that it is, contrary to the current descriptions of this 

 genus in the floras, truly hermaphrodite, and not " dicecious or 

 subdicecious." Such is the early flowering of this plant, its multi- 

 tudinous flowers, fragrance, and perennial luxuriant growth, as to be 

 well worth the attention of bee masters. The pollen is so fully 

 exposed on the exserted stamens and styles as to invite insects ; 

 and bees tempted out by a genial day in December, January, or 

 February, might find a rich table when other food was scarce or 

 absent. Hence P. fragrans would be pre-eminently valuable as 

 the earliest provender for bees. 



February 6th, 187?. 



Polycystina from the Mediterranean. — Colonel Horsley showed 

 some beautiful specimens, all more or less perforated, and some 

 prolonged into spires. They were mostly fossil, and some of them 

 from the rocks of Bermuda, the tripoli of Eichmond, Virginia, and 

 the Marls of Sicily. 



Hydra vulgaris. — Mr. Fullagar showed a number of specimens of 

 this species from his aquarium, some with two or three buds, a few 

 of the young with tentacles expanded and about to leave the parent 

 stem, and others just commencing to bud ; also several very minute 

 hydras which had lately made their appearance in the water, and 

 which he concluded were produced from ova deposited last autumn. 



