318 



matter, and congratulated him upon the distinction conferred 

 by the Royal Society of London, in electing him as a Fellow. 



Ordinary Meeting, June 4, 1907. 



The President (J. C. Verco, M.D., F.R.C.S.) in the 

 chair. 



Nominations. — John McConnell Black, Pressman, and 

 R. H. Pulleine, M.B., CM., both of Adelaide, as Fellows. 



Ballot. — Rudolph Fison Purdue, Mining Agent, Tas- 

 mania ; Hugo Carl Emil Muecke, Agent, and John Darling, 

 Corn Merchant, both of Adelaide ; and Professor R. W. Chap- 

 man, M.A., B.C.E., and W. T. Cooke, D.Sc, both of Ade- 

 laide University, were unanimously elected as Fellows. 



Exhibits. — J. G. O. Tepper, F.L.S., exhibited two cases 

 of Australian micro-moths, which, with ten other cases in 

 the Museum, were collected by the late W. Guest, and re- 

 arranged by Mr. Tepper ; only about 2 per cent, of these 

 are destructive or injurious in the garden and field. The 

 Cryi3tophaga i?7ipunctata is very injurious to cultivated trees. 

 Mr. Tepper also exhibited the contents of the crop of a 

 black magpie, sent to him by Mr. J. W. Mellor, containing 

 the remains of two species of insects, not generally eaten 

 by birds ; on© of these a bug belonging to the same family 

 as the bed-bug, and some berries, possibly from one of the 

 Styphelias. Mr. Tepper also showed a cockroach f Ataxifjamia 

 sp.) from Kalgoorlie (very similar to the warehouse insect) 

 from Mr. Ashby. Mr. W. B. Poole exhibited a num- 

 ber of photo-micrographs of diatoms and transverse sections 

 of the stems of plants, highly magnified. Mr. E. Ashby, a 

 very handsome cock lyre-bird, from the Maconolly Ranges, 

 and the skins of a megapode and young, from Northern Aus- 

 tralia. Judging from the appearance of the country where 

 the lyre-bird was found, Mr. Ashby thinks that these birds 

 would thrive in the hills around Adelaide and on Kangaroo 

 Island. He also mentioned instances of mimicry by lyre- 

 birds. Mr. Ashby gave some further notes on the mound- 

 building megapodes of Northern Australia, from information 

 given by Mr. C. E. May, of Port Keats, who examined four 

 nests of these birds in that neighbourhood. These nests 

 were all slightly flattened on the tops, and more or less 

 covered with small brushwood, which, it appears, had been 

 thrown up by the birds themselves. This brushwood pre- 

 vents the earth, of which the mounds are composed, from 

 setting too hard. The flattening of the top is possibly caused 

 by the natives digging for the eggs and in so doing pulling 

 the top down. The megapode always selects a thick jungle 

 amongst tamarind-trees for its mound. Many of these 



