1868.] Biology. 533 
“The Origin of our Fruit Trees.” He had travelled in Asia Minor 
and Persia for the purpose of investigating this question, and was 
led to conclude that the Apricot, and perhaps the Peach, had no wild 
representative in these countries, though perhaps they might have 
in China. The Prunes of our fruit-gardens were not derived from 
the common wild Plum of Europe, but from another stock which 
occurs wild in the East. Many gardeners and botanists hold that 
the Peach and Nectarine are merely varieties of the Almond, in 
which the green rind has become fleshy and sweet. Dr. Koch 
adduced facts in favour of this view, amongst others the production 
of almond-like fruits by a peach-tree through atavism, and the 
existence of an inferior form of peach-tree in gardens known as 
Peach-almonds. Such a plant Dr. Koch had found growing wild 
in many parts of Persia. 
Mr. Mogeridge described and exhibited specimens of the 
“ Muffa,” a remarkable cryptogamic growth which is found in the 
sulphurous springs of Valdieri, and which is used in the medicinal 
baths as an external application. 
A most interesting paper relating to Ethnology, was that of 
Mr. E. B. Tylor “On Language and Mythology as Departments 
of Biological Science.” The author pointed out, by examples, how 
definite laws of the development of the human mind might be 
traced by the examination of the rudest languages in different 
parts of the globe, and by the study of the origin of myths. We 
must, he said, look for laws of independent similar development in 
civilization, as in vegetable and animal structure, and the backward 
state in which the science of culture still remains, seems mainly 
due to the systematic methods so familiar to the naturalist having 
hitherto been so imperfectly worked. 
Of practical matters, the importance of “ Arboriculture” was 
again brought before the Section by Mr. Brown. Dr. Cleghorn 
also discussed the subject of “Forestry in India.” Professor Alfred 
Newton, in a paper “On the Zoological Aspects of the Game Laws,” 
urged the necessity of a “close time” being enforced by the Govern- 
ment in this country for all birds and other animals during which 
it should be illegal to carry a gun. Such a period was adopted 
both on the Continent and im America during the breeding season 
of birds, and was a very right measure; for at present in this 
country thousands of birds are shot when nesting, especially sea- 
gulls, and their young are allowed to perish of hunger. Professor 
Newton also deprecated the indiscriminate slaughter of what keepers 
are pleased to call vermin, which are really most useful animals in 
destroying smaller creatures, such as rats and mice, which do act 
injuriously by feeding on the eggs of game and other birds. Miss 
Lydia Becker, of Manchester, replied to Professor Newton’s accu- 
