lii. Proceedings. 
it which was described by Dr. Carpenter. He also expressed 
a hope that if any member of the Club met with .a similar 
tumour on a tree he would send him the specimen. Tumours 
of this description on plants were in many respects similar to 
tumours which were well known to medical men as diseases 
in animals, and as he believed that a good deal of valuable 
information might be obtained by comparing these tumours in 
plants with similar morbid growths in animals, he was very 
desirous of taking up this subject and investigating it. 
Dr. CARPENTER also exhibited several birds’ nests, taken 
from his own garden during the past summer. He said that 
his chief reason for calling attention to these was that they 
seemed to show that there were what one might call fools 
amongst birds as well as amongst human beings. This was 
very well shown by the way in which certain birds build their 
nests. Four years ago, when he went to his present residence, 
there was on the lawn an arbor vite tree, and in that tree a 
thrush built its nest, but built it in a very insecure position. 
In the very middle of the nest the bird had woven a bit of 
white paper, and anyone going along must see that paper as 
well as the nest. The nest was a badly built one, and was not 
constructed as thrushes generally build their nests, but was 
simply perched in a single cleft between two branches. As soon 
as the young birds were hatched and began to grow the nest 
toppled over, and they tumbled out. In the following season 
a similar nest was built precisely in a similar way in the same 
arbor vite tree, and a gust of wind blew it out before the eggs 
were hatched. Each succeeding year there had been an 
increasing number of these kind of insecure nests built in 
these trees by thrushes and blackbirds. The arbor vite 
being chosen, exposed places and insecure position being taken 
in preference. He expressed an opinion that nest building 
had its origin in a reasoning power, and was not due to 
instinct alone, as instinct was neither progressive nor 
retrograde, but was always the same, being independent of 
education or experience. It was quite certain that birds 
differed in their capacities, and he believed that if we could 
see the brains of the birds whose building powers he had 
commented upon they would be found defective in some part 
of their organization. In a neighbouring garden he found a 
thrush’s nest, also with a piece of white paper woven into 
it. Why it should be so he could not conceive, unless on the 
principle that the reasoning powers of these birds were defec- 
tive, and that a brood had been hatched which were propagat- 
ing a class of foolish birds. 
Dr. CARPENTER next described a large glacial moraine which 
he had examined last autumn in the cliff near the village of 
