Proceedings. cxxxix. 



crab, porcellana loiigicoriiis (under microscope), Croydon 

 flints, containing fossils ; Mr. W. Low Sargeant, Lacimilaria 

 socialis, Vorcitclla, Sec. (under microscope); Mr. Klaassen, 

 map of section of Park Hill beds exposed in the new cutting, 

 also drawing of a new fossil shell (perna), discovered by Mr. 

 Henry Turner, and bones of coryphodon, a mammalian allied 

 to the tapir and horse; Mr. J. E. Syms, section of limestone 

 with foraminifera (under microscope). 



Ordinary Meeting, September 12th, 1883. 

 John Berney, Esq., F.R.M.S., President, in the Chair. 



The minutes of the last meeting were read and signed. 



The President announced that the paper which would be 

 read in October would be " A Week in the Fens," by A. B. 

 Farn, Esq. He also announced that the committee had made 

 arrangements for the Club to visit the Zoological Gardens on 

 Saturday, the 29th September. 



The following donations were announced: — Report of the 

 Hampstead Naturalist's Club ; Report of the West Kent 

 Micros, and Nat. Hist. Society ; " Science Gossip" for June, 

 July, August, and September; Journal of the Northamptonshire 

 Nat. Hist. Society ; Journal of the Royal Micro. Society, 

 June and August. 



Mr. G. C. Chisholm then read a paper entitled " Endemic 

 Species and their Lessons." Mr. Chisholm commenced his 

 paper by pointing out the important bearing of the facts of 

 geographical distribution on the theories of the origin of new 

 species, and the influence such facts had on the minds of 

 Darwin and Wallace in directing them to the solution of the 

 problem which is associated with their names. 



He then proceeded to review the facts of the occurrence of 

 endemic species, that is to say, species peculiar to certain 

 regions, and found nowhere else, such species being specially 

 abundant in islands remote from the mainland, thus each of 

 the Canary Islands, each of the Sandwich Islands, each of 

 the Galapagos, the Island of St. Helena, all possess such 

 peculiar species. It has also been found by Engler that in 

 those islands which lie at no great distance from the m.ainland 

 but have been severed from it for a long period, the endemic 

 genera of plants are represented by one or few species ; in 

 those at a greater distance from the mainland the endemic 

 genera are less numerous, but consist of more numerous 

 species. In islands separated in recent geological time the 

 flora consists mamly of introduced species. 



Isolated regions of the mainland also possess these endemic 



