576 Transactions of the American Institute. 



it is better adapted to other trees, which, therefore, take the place of 

 the pine. 



Dr. Van der Weyde — It is the "struggle for existence." Seeds 

 are present everywhere, and where there is a chance for them they 

 will develop. When the soil is exhausted of the nourishment suited 

 for the pine, of course other seeds not requiring that particular 

 nourishment will develop more rapidly, and give the pine no chance 

 to grow. 



VII. The Dragon of Lyme Regis. 



The British Museum has lately received the fossil remains of a fly- 

 ing dragon, measuring upward of four feet from tip to tip of the 

 expanded wings. The bones of the head, wings, legs, tail, and a great 

 part of the trunk, with the ribs, blade-bones, and collar-bones, are 

 imbedded in dark lias shale from Lyme Regis, on the Dorsetshire coast. 

 The head is large in proportion to the trunk, and the tail is as long as 

 the rest of the body. It is extended in a straight, stiff line, the ver- 

 tebral bones being surrounded and bound together by bundles of tine, 

 long, needle-shaped bones. It is supposed to have served to keep 

 outstretched, or to sustain, a large expanse of the flying membrane or 

 parachute which extended from the tips of the wings to the feet, and 

 spread along the space between the hind-limbs and the tail, after the 

 fashion of certain bats. 



The first indication of this monster was described by Buckland in 

 the " Transactions of the Geological Society," and is referred to in 

 his " Bridgewater Treatise," under the name of pterodactylus 

 macronyx. The subsequently acquired head and tail give characters 

 of the teeth and other parts which establish a distinct generic form 

 in the extinct family of flying reptiles. The animal, as now restored, 

 will be described and figured in the volume of the Monographs of the 

 Palseontographical Society, for the present year, by Prof. Owen. 



Adjourned to Thursday next, at half-past seven o'clock, p. m. 



*» 



May 18, 1871. 



Prof. S. D. Tillman, in the Chair ; Robert Weir, Secretary. 

 The President, Prof. S. D. Tillman, presented his summary of 

 scientific news as follows : 



I. The Theory of Atmospheric Germs. 

 Dr. A. E. Sansom has g'iven, under this title, in The Quarterly 

 Journal of Science, a brief statement of the positions assumed by the 



