154 Annals of the Philosophical Club 



from 160 to 180 feet, on an island off New Caledonia, com- 

 mented on the extremely local distribution of these trees 

 over the islands of the southern Pacific, which had now 

 furnished six species. 



Feb. 2ist, I27th meeting. Mr. Darwin gave an account 

 of his experiments with Drosera (sun-dew), a species of which 

 was abundant on a common near Down, and described how 

 it entrapped flies and held them till they died in a cage of 

 its hairs, which afterwards returned to their normal position. 

 He had ascertained that non-nitrogenous materials did not 

 set these in motion, but that a very small amount of nitrate 

 or carbonate of ammonia caused one of the hairs to emit its 

 secretion, and a portion of flesh or even of ordinary hair 

 had the same effect. 1 



Mr. Prestwich mentioned that six flint implements, 

 resembling those from Abbeville, had been found by Mr. 

 T. Leech between Herne Bay and Reculver at the foot 

 of a cliff consisting of Lower Tertiary beds, capped with 

 gravel. Mammalian remains of the same period as those 

 in the Somme valley had occurred previously at no great 

 distance. 2 



March 2ist, I28th meeting. Mr. Prestwich stated that, 

 since the last meeting, he and Mr. John Evans had visited 

 Herne Bay, and each of them had found, on the shore at 

 the foot of the cliff, a flint implement of the Abbeville type. 

 Next day he found an implement at the foot of Swale Cliff 

 near Whit stable. 



April 2gth, i2Qth meeting (anniversary). Dr. Carpenter 

 exhibited a specimen of a large Polyzoon, much resembling 

 in its mode of growth the Eschara foliacea of our own seas. 

 It had been detached from a ship which was one of the 

 expeditionary force sent to China, and had been anchored 

 for about six months at the mouth of the Peiho. Its size, 

 as its growth might reasonably be limited to that interval, 



1 He began work on this subject in the summer of 1860, and continued 

 it intermittently till 1875, when he published the results in his book, 

 Insectivorous Plants. 



2 For a full description see J. Evans, Ancient Stone Implements (1897), 

 pages 613-7, where five of them are figured. 



