I90 



NATURE 



[June 21, 1894 



exhibited for Miss Omerod specimens of DilobaitrHs nhierus. 

 Slum, £.ucraniiiii! ariihuciiit!. Brail., and Mt;atht>pa violacfa, 

 BliDch., which she had received from the La Plata district of 

 the Argentine territories, where they were said to be damaging 

 the grass crops. He alio read notes from Miss Orinerod on the 

 subject. — -Mr. Hampson raised an important point as to what 

 was the )e^ " date of publication " of part i. of the Trans- 

 acli-ins of the Society, 1894. He pointed oat that the question 

 of the priority of the names of certain new .cpecies described 

 therein would depend upon the dalL' of publication. .\ long 

 discussion then ensued, in which Dr. Sharp, the Hon. \V. 

 Rothschild. Mr. Gos^, Mr. Mcl.achlan, Lord Walsingham, Prof. 

 Poulion, F.R.S., and Mr. Verrall took part. — Prof. Franz 

 Kixpalck, of Prague, communicated a paper entitled "descrip- 

 tions of a new species of A'aphiilia, L. , and of three new species 

 of Trichoptera from the Balkan Peninsula, with critical remarks 

 on Panorta f^ihhera.t, McLach." — Lord Walsingham, ex- 

 President and Vice-President, then took the chair, and a special 

 general meeting convened under chap, xviii. of the bye- laws 

 was held. 



Geological Society, June 6. — Dr. Hemy Woodward, 

 F.R.S., President, in ihe chair. — On ihe banded structure of 

 some tertiary gabbros in the Isle of Skye, by Sir Archibald 

 Geikie, F.R.S., and J. J. H. Teall, F.R S. After calling 

 attention :o the previous references to the pseudo-bedding and 

 banding of the gabbro masses of the Inner Mel ride-, the 

 authors described the rocks which form the rugged ridge ol 

 Druim an-Eidhne, near the head of Glen Sligachan. This 

 ridge is made up of parallel bed?, sheets, or sills disposed in a 

 general N.N.W. direction with a prevalent easterly dip. Four 

 distinct types of gabbro occur: (I) dark, fine-grained, gran.i- 

 lilic gabbros; (2) well-banded gabbros; (3) coarsegrained 

 massive gabbros ; and (4) pale veins of a highly felspalhic 

 gabbro. The relative ages of the handed and granuhiic gabbros 

 have no: been delinitely settled ; but the coarse, massive gabbros 

 are certainly intrusive in the banded series, and the pale veins 

 cut all the other varieties. The authors dealt mainly with the 

 banded gabbros. These occur in successive sheets or sills which 

 vary from a few feet to many yards in thickness, and consist of 

 . -. .'.1 '^yers of lighter and darker material which correspond 

 n with the trend df the sheets, and are usually in- 

 ne east or south-east at angles ranging from 20 to 

 30 . in some cases the bands can be seen to have been 

 I'uckaed or folded The minerals enteiing into the compo- 

 sition of the banded, as also of the other varieties, a'e labra- 

 dori:e. pyroxene, olivine, and litanifcrous magnetite. The 

 ' -'^:- - v.Triation in ihe relative proportions of the 



and especially in the amount of magnetite. 



...J and lemicles are composed entirely ot 



pyroxene and magnetite. The variations in chemical compo- 

 sition were illustrated by three analyses by Mr. Player. The 

 microscopic characters of the rocks were described, and it was 

 shown that the minerals of Ihe banded gabbros have not 

 ' r broken since they were formed. The au'hos 



he banding is the result of the intrusion of a 

 - - -■ .i.agm.n, and ihat similar banding in certain por- 

 tions ol the Lewikian gneiss may have been produced in the 

 same way. Dr. 1 .linslon-Lavis, Prof. lilake, Dr. Hicks, Mr. 

 Marker, and Mf. J. Mort I'layer spjke upon the subject of 

 the paper, and Sir .-Xrchibald Geikie briefly replied.— On the 

 mcturcof the Djrbyshirecarbonilerous doleriles 

 11. Arnold- bemrose. This paper dealt with 



' * "' '-'ncs or igneous rocks of Derby- 



; 10 ihe work of previous pelro- 



, and the cjuesiion as to the 



'"»"• •■ DUicrops mapped Viy the geological survey, 



"">' nne* hive been examined, and the results 



'f the paper and for future 



I into ma«ive rocks or 



.liii. The former consitof 



lar or wiih ophiiic auglte, and 



' n very fresh, but in some places 



!• AiieicU I'j a diabuc. The prmcipal conilituent minerals were 



ilexnbeH. A pwiidomorph of olivine, optically like bi >tite 



: from ii chemically, 



in which Sir Archi- 



' m-Lavis took 



he Midlands, 



^ ,, -j.ifcrous glnciil 



deposits of India and .\ustralia, by R. D. Oldham. The author 

 first described ihe Permian breccias of the Midland counties of 

 England, which he had the opportunity of examining at E.ister- 

 I tide of the present year. He described the characters of the 

 I breccias, and concluded that they were formed suhaerially as 

 I gravel-fans by rivers charged with a maximum load of sediment, 

 and therefore incapable of performing any appreciable amount 

 of erosion. .An examinatijn of many of the fragmin.s at 

 .Vbberley and some at Church Hill revealed the presence of 

 scratches, which occur in such a manner that the author beiieved 

 they exi-ted on the fragments before they were transported, and 

 discussed the evidence for their production by ice or soil-cap 

 movemen', deciding in favour of the former. .\ short de-ciipiion 

 of the upper carboniferous deposits of India followed, and it 

 was pointed out that they differ markedly from the deposits of 

 Britain. Amongst o:her things the separa ion of different 

 pebbles by considerable interspace of matrix, and the bending 

 of stra'.ification-planes round a pebble as though the pebble had 

 dropped from above, was noted, and it was maintained that 

 Hoating ice alone will account for these pebbles being dropped 

 into the Indian deposits. Finally, it was remarked ihat the so- 

 cil!ed upper carboni erous depOjits of India and the Permian 

 deposits of the .Midlands of Uritam may be practically conlem- 

 po.'aneous, as maintained by the l.ne Mr. H. F. Blanford, 

 ill lica ing a possible siuniltaneous existence of glaciers in Eng- 

 land, India, an 1 .Vuur.ilia. Prof, l.apworlh made some remark* 

 upon the piper, ani the author replied. 



Linnean Sociity, June 7.— Mr. C. B. Clarke, F.R.S., 

 ; Piesident, in the chair. — The President uominaled as Vice- 

 I I'residentj for the year Messrs. J. G. Baker, \V. Carruhers, 



F. Crisp and Prof. C. Stewart. — Dr. John Lowe communicated 

 iheiesultsof observations made by iiim in Madeira and Tene- 

 riffe on the habit in certain insectivorous small birds belonging to 

 the genera Sylvia, Phyiloscopus and Varm (of which specimens 

 were exhibited) of puncturing the calyces of llovvers for the 

 purpose of attracting insects on which they feed. .\n interest- 



I ing di'Cussion followed, in which the President, the Rev. G. 

 llenslow, and others took pirt — Mr. Carruthers exhibited a 

 series of photographs of the celebrated Cowlhorpe O.ik ia 

 Voikshire, taken at long intervals, commencing wiih a repro- 

 duction of Dr. Huntei's engraving of 1776, and made remarks 

 upon the rate of gro.vth and decay, and prob.\ble duration of 



I life in this tree. — Mr. Raymund I loArling exhibited and made 



I remarks upon a dwarf glaucous pine, and some curiously shaped 

 Trapa fruits from Japan. — .\Ir. Thomis Christy exhibited spe- 

 cimens of two species of /'jly^oiium (/'. scuhalineiisi and P. 



' euspiJa'.um), of value for forage, and pointed out lh.it the roots 

 of the matuie plaals, when cut, are, in the former species, of a 

 whitish colour, and in the latter of a bright yellow, en- 

 abling the two to be rea>lily distinguished apart f o:n the 

 leaves.— .V paper was then re.id by the Right Hon. 

 Sir John Lubbock, Bart., M. P., F.R.S., on stipules and the 

 protection of buds. .\ discussion followed, in which the ReT. 



G. Hen,low, .Mr. .V. \V. Bennett, Prof. .Marshall Ward, and .VIr. 

 John Eraser took part. — Before the meeting adjourned, the 

 President announced that a bust of Charles Watertun, the 

 Yorkshire naturalist, and author of " Wanderings in South 

 America," had been presented to the .Society by the tiustees 

 of the late Mrs. Pitt Byrne (/;.> Busk). This bust was executed 

 in 1865 (the year in which he died, at the age of eighty-three) 

 by the lae Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins ; it is an excellent like- 

 nes.1, and the only bust of him in existence. Ihe only accessible 

 portrait of him is a small engraving by .-Vdlard, which forms a 

 frontispiece to the third volume of ihe " Ess.iys on Natural 

 History, ' from an original oil painting by Charles W. l'eale« 

 made in Philadelphia in 1824, when Walerton was in his forty- 

 second year. 



Camiirihge. 

 Philosophical Sjciety, May 28.— Prof. T. McKenny 

 Hughes, President, in the chair. — The announcement 

 was made ihat the adjudicators of the Hopkins prize for 

 the period 1S89-91 have awarded the prize lo Prof. J. J. 

 Tnomion, F. U.S., for his researches on electrical oscillaiiow 

 j and other important contri bulions lo electrical ihcory. — Mf. 

 Warhurlon exhibited specimens of the nest of Trochosa piila, • 

 Lycosid spider found in abundance on Ihe sand-hills of Sonlh- 

 purl. The nest is not so simple as was suppo-ed, as it possesses 

 a pouch or off shoot from the main burrow directed upwards and 

 forwards. In this the spider takes refuge when disturbed. 



-NO. I 2 86, VOL. 50] 



