Proceedings 59 
ance of evidence is so far in favour of the superior anti- 
quity of the Dicotyledonous type. The question is by no 
means settled yet: we need more facts, especially concern- 
ing the seedling structure of Monocotyledons and tuberous 
Dicotyledons. But the evidence we have does I think 
justify the investigator in treating the theory just expound- 
ed as a working hypothesis. In brief it is that Monocoty- 
ledons are derived from a race of Flowering Plants which 
possessed two cotyledons, and a cambium in the mature 
stem: that the two cotyledons fused to form a single mem- 
ber: and that this process, and also the peculiar anatomy 
of the mature stem in modern Monocotyledons, may be 
considered as the direct consequence of the adaptation 
of the Primitive Monocotyledon to a geophilous habit. 
Meet NG held at Redhill, Jan. 30th, 1903. 
Present—35. 
Mr, H. M. Wallis, of Reading, gave a Lecture on— 
THE BIRDS ONE SEES ABROAD. 
The lecturer remarked upon the difficulties which the 
average tourist experiences in determining the species of the 
birds which he sees whilst travelling. Books of reference, 
even the best, are of small avail, the plates, if coloured, 
shewing an adult male in nuptial plumage in the usual 
museum attitude, and giving long and minute descriptions 
of the various moults of the sexes and plumage of the im- 
mature. Now the average tourist will not have the birds 
in his hands, he will not once in twenty times see the birds 
in museum attitudes and under museum conditions, nor can 
one guarantee an adult male in full breeding plumage. Some 
means must be found of determining, roughly it may be, 
the species of what one sees whilst upon the wing and at 
a distance. 
To this end the lecturer illustrated with broad chalk 
outlines the salient characteristics, differences and atti- 
tudes of several common continental species, the discre- 
pancies between the tails of the Red Kite and the Black 
Kite; the different under-markings of the Common and the 
