34 
The leading objects exhibited in the Library were some very 
beautiful cases of British birds, collected and mounted by Mr H. H. J. 
Nicholls ; a white cock pheasant and male and female little gull in 
mature plumage, by Mr. Pratt; a fine collection of foreign shells, by 
Mr R. Glaisyer ; a very curious series of Brighton beach pebbles, con- 
taining choanites, by Mr. Glaisyer ; chalk and other fossils, by Messrs. 
Saunders and Dennaut; specimens illustrating the Post Pleiocene 
formation at Brighton, by Mr. J. Howell ; vertebra of Iguanodon, from 
Isle of Wight, by Mr, J. Sewell ; rubbings from Egyptian monuments, 
by Mr. Nourse ; white ant, crocodile, &c., by Mr. EH. Moore ; drawings 
of volcanoes, mammalia, and other Natural History specimens, ex- 
hibited by Mr. Wonfor. 
Tea and coffee were provided during the evening, and about 200 
ladies and gentlemen availed themselves of the Society’s invitation. 
January 257TH. 
MICROSCOPICAL MEETING.—DR. HALLIFAX ON 
VEGETABLE PARASITES, 
Dr. Hatuirax remarked that a distinction must be drawn be- 
tween those which simply attached themselves to organized beings and 
those which lived at the expense vf and upon the juices of the plants 
or animals on or in which they grew, for they were both external and 
internal. The ivy was a good example of an Epiphyte. This plant 
attached itself by its suckers to a wall equally with a tree, and did not 
live on the juices of the plant ; whereas the mistletoe, the best example 
of a true parasite, obtained its nutriment at the expense of the tree 
on which it grew, although it did not seem that the tree suffered. 
The seeds of the mistletoe, surrounded by a viscous substance, 
were, it was believed, carried by birds, became attached to the branches 
or trunks of trees, and then germinated, sending their fibres through 
the bark into the sap wood, and continuing to grow at the same time 
EE 
a 
