March i, .1877] 



NATURE 



387 



duced in the mixed company of old friends. Sight cannot be 

 jxCute ; for example, in experiments food was placed on a glass 

 slip a few inches from the nest, the straight road to and from the 

 nest being soon familiar to the ants ; but when the food had 

 been shifted only a short distance from its first position it was long 

 ere it was discovered. Indeed they wandered from a few minutes 

 to half an hour in the most extraordinary circuitous routes before 

 finding out the direct road between the nest and food, and via 

 veisd. Slavery in certain genera is a positive institution, the 

 Amazon ants {Polyirgus rufesans) absolutely requiring slave 

 assistants to clean, to dress, and to feed them, else they will 

 rather die than help themselves, though foorl be close at hand. 

 A curious blind woodlou.-e {Platyarthriis hoffmanse^ii) is allowed 

 hoU'^e room by the ants, it acts as a kind of scavenger, the ants 

 taking little notice of the woodlice, and even migrate leaving 

 them behind. Some new species of Diptera of the family Pho- 

 ridre he finds to be parasitic on our house ants ; and Mr. Vernal 

 has recently described these interesting forms. — A paper on the 

 aspects of the vegetation of Rodriguez was read by Mr. I. Bailey 

 Balfour, who accompanied as botanist the Transit of Venus Ex- 

 pedition in 1874. It seems that, like the flora of St. Helena, that 

 of Rodriguez has undergone great change.^, partly by human and 

 other agencies. It is insular, dry, and temperate rather than 

 humid, and tropical in character. The facies is predominantly 

 Asiatic, though forms of Mascarene type, and even Polynesian 

 and American forms, are sparsely met with. The leaves of many 

 plants Mr. Balfour observed exhibited heteromorphism of a 

 marked kind, and this he described with some fulness, remarking 

 that while as a whole in degree and kind variable, yet among 

 species the leaf variation is pretty uniform. — The fungi of the 

 Challeni^er Expedition (third notice), by the Rev. M.J. Berkeley, 

 and on Steere's collection of tropical ferns, by Prof. Harrington, 

 U.S., were papers announced and taken as read. 



Zoological Society, February 20. — Prof. Flower, F.R.S., 

 vice-president, in the chair. — Mr. Osbert Salvin, F.R, S., ex- 

 hibited a series of drawings taken during Hunter's voyage to 

 Australia in 1788-92, wherein Duke of York Island as it then 

 existed was depicted, together with various objects of natural 

 history. — A communication was read from Prof. Owen, C. B., 

 containing an account of some additional evidence recently ob- 

 tained of the former existence of extinct birds allied to the genus 

 Dromornis in Australia.— Mr. Sclater read a paper on the birds 

 collected by the Rev. George Brown on Duke of York Island 

 and on the adjoining parts of New Ireland and New Britain. 

 Eleven species were described as new to science, amongst which 

 were a new Kingfisher proposed to be called Tanysiptera 7iiqri- 

 ceps, and a new Pigeon to which the name of Macropygia brmvni 

 was assigned. — Dr. G. E. Dobson read a paper on a collection 

 of Bats collected by the Rev. George Brown in Duke of York 

 Island and the adjacent parts of New Ireland and New Britain. 

 Amongst these four were considered to belong to undescribed 

 species, and one of these to a new genus of the Frugivorous Bats, 

 proposed to be called Melonycieris. — Mr. Edward R. Alston 

 read a paper on the Rodents and Marsupials collected by the 

 Rev. G. Brown in Duke of York Island, New Britain, and New 

 Ireland. The species, six in number, were either identical with 

 New Guinea forms or nearly allied. For the three ne at species the 

 names of Mus browni, Uroinys ru/escens, and Alacropus lugens 

 were proposed. — Messrs. O. Salvin and F. Du Cane Godman 

 read the descriptions of a collection of Lepidoptera made by the 

 Rev. George Brown on Duke of York Island and its neighbour- 

 hood. The series of Butterflies contained twenty-six genera and 

 forty species, while in that of the Mo:hs eleven genera were 

 represented by fourteen species. — Mr. E. J. Miers read a descrip- 

 tion of the Crustacea collected by the Rev. G. Brown on Duke 

 of York Island. The collection, with one exception {Lysiosquilla 

 arenaria), belonged to the Decapoda, and contained in all forty- 

 four specimens representing sixteen species. Although none of 

 the species were new to science, several were interesting and 

 little-known forms. — Dr. A. Giinther, F.R.S., read a paper on 

 a collection of Reptiles and Fishes made by the Rev. George 

 Brown on Duke of York Island, New Ireland, and New Britain. 

 Of nine lizards represented in the collection one was described 

 as new, and of eleven snakes three were considered to be hitherto 

 unknown. Amongst the latter was a new genus and species of 

 Erycidae, proposed to be called Erebophis asper. — Mr. H. W. 

 Bates read a paper on the Coleoptera collected by Mr. George 

 Brown on Duke oi York Island, New Ireland, and New Britain, 

 The collection comprised forty-four species, and contained some 

 of the finest species of the New Guinea Fauna. Amongst these 



were many examples of a new Longicom, proposed to be called 

 Batocaa bro-vtii, after its discoverer. 



Geological Society, February 7. — Prof. P. Martin Duncan, 

 F.R.S., president, in the chair. — James Durham, Herbert 

 William Harrison, William Hutchinson, H. M. Klaassen, 

 Graeme Ogilvie, Joseph William Spencer, and Griffin W. Vyse 

 were elected Fellows of the Society. — The following communi- 

 cations were read : — On the chemical and mineralogical changes 

 which have taken place in certain eruptive rocks of North 

 Wales, by John Arthur Phillips, F.G.S. In this paper the 

 author described the felspathic rock of Penmaenmawr, which 

 has been erupted through Silurian strata, and rises to a height of 

 1,553 f'^s' above the level of the sea. The rock, which is com- 

 posed of crystalline felspar with minute crystals of some horn- 

 blendic mineral, is fine-grained and greenish grey, divided into 

 beds by joints dipping north at an angle of about 45", and again 

 divided by double jointings, sometimes so developed as to render 

 the pjck distinctly columnar. At the eastern end of the moun- 

 tain the stone is so close in texture as ofien almost to resemble 

 chert. In the next two quarries westward the rock is coarser, 

 and its jointing less regular. In the most westerly quarry the 

 stone is generally fresher in appearance, closer in grain, and 

 greener in colour. All these stones are probably modifications 

 of the same original rock. From the chemical analysis of the 

 rocks the author concludes that, supposing them all to have had 

 originally the same composition as the unaltered rock in the 

 most westerly quarry, that at the extreme east of the mountain 

 has lost about 3 per cent, of silica, and the others have received 

 respectively an increase of i "35 and 0*77 per cent, of silica. — 

 On a new species of Belemnitcs and Salenia from the Middle 

 Tertiaries of South Australia," by Ralph Tate, F.G.S., Pro- 

 fessor of Natural Science in the University of Adelaide. The 

 author noticed the occurrence in deposits of supposed Miocene 

 age in South Australia of a species of Belemnite {Belemnites 

 senescens) and a Salenia (6". tertiaria). These fossils were ob- 

 tained from Aldenga, twenty-six miles south of Adelaide, on the 

 east coast of St. Vincent's Gulf, where the long series of sea- 

 cliffs contains an assemblage of fossils identical with that of the 

 Murray River beds. The Salenia is especially interesting on 

 account of the discovery of a living species of the genus by the 

 naturalists of the Challenger. — On Alauisaurus gardneri (Seeley), 

 an Elasmosaurian (rom the base of the gault at Folkstone, by 

 Plarry Govier Seeley, F.L.S., F. G. S., Professor of Geography 

 at King's College, London. The author described the skeleton 

 of a great long-necked Saurian obtained by Mr. J. S. Gardner 

 from the Gault of the cliff at Folkestone. The remains obtained 

 included a tooth, a long series of vertebree, some ribs, bones of 

 the pectoral arch, the femur, and some phalanges, indicating a 

 very large species, which the author referred, with some doubt, 

 to the genus Mauisauriis of Dr. Hector, founded upon a Saurian 

 from the Cretaceous formation of New Zealand. He gave it the 

 name of Alauisaurtis gardneri in honour of its discoverer. A 

 small heap of pebbles was found in the neighbourhood of the 

 ribs, and it was supposed that these had been contained in the 

 stomach of the animal. 



Anthropological Institute, February 13. — Mr. John Evans, 

 F.R.S., president, in the chair, — Miss Buckland read a paper 

 on primitive agriculture, in which the value of the study of the sub- 

 ject was explained, as determining migrations, &c., of nations in 

 pre-historic times. It was observed that agriculture could only 

 have been practised by peoples having settled habitats, and was 

 probably carried on then, as often is the case now, by women ; 

 that agriculture was and is still unknown to some of the lower 

 races who confine themselves to the cultivation of indigenous 

 roots and fruits, whilst the higher races cultivated the cereals. 

 The origin of the cereals is still obscure, and maize, which has 

 been considered indigenous to the New World, and unknown in 

 Europe before the time of Columbus, was, in the opinion of Miss 

 Buckland (based on the reports of recent travellers in Africa, 

 Madagascar, New Guinea, China, &c.), cultivated by peoples 

 which have never had intercourse with Europeans. In America, 

 China, and Ancient Egypt there are traces of a time anterior to 

 that of the cultivation of the cereals ; and a similarity of myths, 

 customs, &c., of China, Egypt, Peru, and Mexico leads to the 

 conclusion that an allied pre- Aryan race introduced cereals into 

 all these countries. In the discussion, Mr. Boyd Dawkins, the 

 president, and others took part. — Mr. H. Hjde Clarke exhibited 

 some weapons from the Amazon River, on which Mr, Franks 

 and others remarked, — Lord Rosehill exhibited a collection of 

 very fine and large flint weapons, objects, &c., from Honduras. 



