THE SECOND AVINTER MEETING. xli. 



The Annual Meeting. — The Hon. Sec. announced Tues- 

 day, May 1 2th, as the provisional date for the annual meeting. 



The Portrait of the Late President. — The Chairman 

 called the attention of the members to the memorial portrait in 

 oils of the lare venerable President of the Club (Mr. J. C. 

 Mansel-Pleydell), which had been hung upon the walls of the 

 room since the last meeting of the Club. It would be a pleasing 

 reminder of their late beloved President and an incentive to 

 them in the study of natural history to which he was so devoted. 



Exhibits. 

 By the Hon. Seceetaey : 

 A Fine Geeenstone Neolithic Celt. — It was found at Portisham last 

 month in digging a drain. Its length is 6| inches and its extreme width 2J inches. 

 It is of an igneous rock commonly called greenstone, but whether in this case it 

 was a dyke or a lava cannot be told. Its place of origin might be Devon or, 

 more likely, Pembrokeshii-e, where such weapons were made. Dr. Colley March 

 also showed a portion of a celt found by himself two years ago in a field between 

 Portisham and Steepleton. It is of the rock commonly called bedded volcanic 

 ash, and is, therefore, eruptive. Of its place of origin nothing can be said. 



By Me. Nelson Richaedson and the Hon. Seceetaey. 



Some South Ameeican Jugs. — Mr. Richaedson stated that they were dug up 

 from the large burial mounds found in Peru— mounds which sometimes rose to 

 the height of about 100 feet and 200 or 300 yards long. The pots were pre- 

 Spanish, certainly more than 400 years old. They were very varied in form, 

 many of them of human fonn. He had twenty or thirty of them at home, and 

 would be pleased to show them to anyone interested. 



Dr. Colley Maech said: Speaking generally, the forms of pottery can be 

 resolved into two types — that which is founded on the basket and that which is 

 founded on the gourd. All vessels of the gourd type have round bases, except 

 those in which, by a process of evolution, the ring of clay in which the vessel was 

 placed has become attached to it, the stand has grown to the vase, with the 

 result that a small foot or pediment has been produced. In any country where 

 gourds flourished they were used as receptacles ; baskets were not needed, and 

 the ceramics are of the gourd type. And it may be assumed that, if basketry is 

 now practised in such countries, it was not an indigenous, but an imported, 

 invention. Peruvian pottery is founded on the gourd. Here is a vessel made 

 from the gourd itself, and here are some corresponding jugs. 



]\Ir. C. W. Dale then read the paper on " The Mammalia of 

 Dorset," which is printed on page i8. 



