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same " Chunee." When the first symptoms of madness were 

 evinced, and it was thought necessary to poison him, a strong 

 dose of mineral poison was inserted into an orange and given 

 to the elephant. The animal was fond of oranges, and imme- 

 diately swallowed it ; but the dose was not strong enough — 

 it merely made him sick. It was attempted to give a still 

 stronger dose in the same manner, but the animal would not 

 take it, and would never again swallow an orange without first 

 crushing it on the ground, as if to smell its contents. 



Dr. Warwick afterwards related two other anecdotes, 

 exemplifying great instinct in swallows; and, when he had 

 concluded, received the thanks of the members. 



Dr. Brett made some remarks on the new test for prussic 

 acid. He explained that the old test produced a deep blue 

 colour, and the new one, sulpho-cyanide, a deep red. By 

 means of the latter agent it was possible to detect the presence 

 of one drop of prussic acid in 3960 parts of water or other 

 liquid. This was demonstrated by an interesting experiment, 

 in which, by heating an exceedingly weak solution of the acid 

 in a capsule, with a glass over it, moistened with hydro-sul- 

 phuret of ammonia, a perfectly white film was deposited on 

 the upper glass by evaporation, and this, when touched by the 

 smallest particle of a per salt of iron, was instantly changed 

 into a blood-red colour. 



At the conclusion of Dr. Brett's paper, a letter was handed 

 to the President from a lithographer in the town, asking per- 

 mission to dedicate to the Society a portrait of one of its 

 members. It was considered that the application could not 

 be entertained at that period of the evening. 



The President, having previously given up the chair to 

 Mr. Yates, then read a paper on the " Duality of Geometrical 

 Relations;" and gave a succinct account of the phenomena 

 which had led to the discovery of the new planet Neptune. 



