Extracts from the Minutc-Book of the Linncan Society. .405 



up their abdomen in the manner of the large Staphylini, 

 bendino- the extremity quite over the head, which they 

 defend by means of their enormous forceps. Tlie largest 

 he could procure was nearly fifteen lines in length, exclu- 

 sive of the antenniE, which measured somewhat more 

 than half an inch. 



Am'. 7, Mr. Sowerby, F.L.S. communicated the following ac- 

 I8O9. count of a remarkable stone, known by the name of the 

 Blowing-Stone, on the road from Faningdon to Uffington, 

 in Berkshire. 



The Blowing-Stone is placed near the front of a little 

 public-house, to which it gives its name. It is an un- 

 wrought Sand-stone, about three feet high, three feet 

 wide, and nearly eighteen inches in thickness, having na- 

 tural perforations. One of these perforations begins at 

 the upper end on one side, and passes to the other side a 

 little lower down. It is eighteen inches in length, about 

 an inch in diameter at the upper end, and nearly two 

 inches at the lower; thus forming a tube like a horn, and 

 when filled with wind sounds like one, and may be heard 

 at a considerable distance. Any one used to blowing a 

 horn can sound it. Mr. Sowerby has not been able to 

 determine whether these perforations were caused by roots 

 of trees or by an animal ; but he concludes that they have 

 been formed in the same manner as those observed in 

 some of the Sand-stone found on Marlborough Downs. 



Mr. Sowerby also communicated the following account 

 of a pit about two miles from Farringdon, commonly 

 called the Farringdon Gravel Pit. 



" This pit is of a nature not yet described, being a rock 

 VOL. X. 3 G com- 



