90 Proceedings of the Royal Plii/sical Society. 



examination lie asked Dr Stevenson Macadam to analyse 

 the plaster to see if any organic matter had been added to it. 

 Dr Macadam made a chemical examination, and found that 

 *' the stucco was impregnated with organic matter of a fatty 

 or resinous nature. When heated the stucco blackened, 

 burned with minute scintillations, and evolved an aromatic 

 odour." This sufficiently accounted for the attacks made on 

 it by the beetles. Dr Smith asked Mr R. F. Logan to ex- 

 amine the insects, and he stated that they belong to the 

 family Tenehrionidce, of which the meal-worm is the most 

 familiar example; but he did not know the species, which 

 was probably not a British one. 



VI. — Note of Bulimus acutus and Helix ericetorum found 

 in lona. By John Alex. Smith, M.D. 



(specimens exhibited.) 



Dr Smith stated that in the end of last July he spent 

 some time in lona, and on the sandy downs on the north-west 

 coast by the sea he found a great abundance of both of these 

 species of land shells. They are well-known species of the 

 south and west of England, and have, he believed, been 

 noticed on various parts of the west coast, as well as by 

 Mr Charles W. Peach in Sutherlandshire. It is interesting 

 to notice in reference to this distribution of these apparently 

 local shells, that, as shown by Mr Alexander Buchan, 

 although the isothermal lines of summer in Britain are nearly 

 parallel with the lines of latitude, in winter they change 

 their course, and run somewhat obliquely south and north 

 through Britain. So that the January isotliermals of 38° and 

 39° run from the south coast through the middle and west of 

 England, the west and Hebrides of Scotland, and then through 

 the very north of Scotland to the Orkney and Shetland 

 Islands, beyond which they run westwards to the Atlantic 

 Ocean; and have undoubtedly a relation to the somewhat 

 corresponding animal life of these different localities. 



