XXxli Proceedings. 
tion, may yet not be continuous, and the Earth may slip in 
between. Also, the meteors may last barely a couple of hours, 
and so only a quarter or less of the Earth (over a segment the 
shape of a melon slice) be favoured. Clouds, too, have to be 
reckoned with. This year, also, the Moon, nearly full, will 
seriously interfere with the spectacular effect. 
Mr. Clark gave a vivid description of the great display of 
November 14th, 1866, which he witnessed as a schoolboy at 
York. Diagrams of this display, prepared by him at the time, 
were shown upon the screen. 
November 21st.—‘* On the Evolution of Form and Design in 
Art,” by Edward Lovett. 
Mr. Lovett began by dealing with the work of man of the 
Stone Age, showing how all his ideas as to form and design were 
in all probability suggested to him by some natural object—the 
fish-hook being originally a thorn from a bush (for instance) ; 
indeed, such hooks actually survive to this day. Pottery, with 
all its modern beauties, may be tiaced back step by step to the 
clay-covered gourd fashioned and baked by primeval man. 
In decorative art, a great deal of apparently meaningless 
design is simply a gradual differentiation from a useful and 
necessary part of the object. A simple illustration of this 
consists of the blue lines of a modern registered letter, which 
represent the ligature by which such letters were once tied up. 
The lecturer then exhibited a series of thirteen sketches, 
each of which had been copied from its predecessor by different 
artists. 
The original design was from a Japanese design of a pair of 
birds flying ; and Mr. Lovett showed that, after thirteen artists 
had given their individual ideas to the subject, it became 
absolutely unlike the original. So it is, and has always been, 
with the perpetuation of any antique form of decoration; it 
becomes so changed from the original as to be quite difficult of ~ 
identification. 
Mr. Lovett then proceeded to describe many examples of 
copying the human face in art, and the way in which it becomes 
conventionalized by the multiplication of certain parts. The 
lecture dealt very fully with many other phases of this subjest, 
which was illustrated by a large collection of aboriginal art 
specimens. 
December 12th.—Was devoted to a lecture by Mr. F. Enock on 
the ‘Wonders and Romance of Insect Life.” This lecture was 
kindly arranged for by our Vice-President, Mr. Philip Crowley. 
January 16th, 1900.—The Annual Meeting and President’s 
Address. 
