Feb. 2, 1871] 
of South Africa,” by Dr. Carl L. Griesbach. The author 
described the primitive method of iron-smelting practised by the 
Kaffirs, and alluded to the knowledge of certain mixed metals, 
such as brass, possessed by some of the northern tribes. A 
description was also given of the native method of gold-washing, 
carried on in some of the tributaries to the Zambesi. The 
dégraded state of the Bushmen was referred to, and it was 
remarked that although they are ignorant of iron-working, they 
yet possess some artistic taste. Among the South African 
implements attention was directed to the musical instruments, 
which the author considered to have been derived from the 
Arabs. Dr. Theophilus Hahn made some philological remarks 
upon this paper, and gave some illustrations of the Hottentot 
clicks. The President announced that this was the last meeting 
of the Ethnological Society as a distinct body, and read the | 
terms of union whereby an amalgamation had been effected 
between the Ethnological and Anthropological Societies of 
London, under the common designation of ‘‘ The Anthropological 
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.” 
EDINBURGH 
Royal Physical Society, January 25.—Mr. C. W. Peach: 
pees tent, in the chair. The secretary exhibited a beautiful 
specimen of the snowy owl Strix y'ctea, shot near Baltasound, 
Shetland, on the 24th of December. It was a female, and the 
remains of a dunin and a jack snipe were both found in its 
stomach. The facial disc and legs of the bird were pure white, 
the rest of the bird was whitish, barred all over with rich 
brown. Another specimen was seen in the same locality, pro- 
bably the male bird. A curious specimen of a young rook was 
exhibited. It was of a uniform dull brown or ash colour, instead 
of the usual black colour, the bill being lightest coloured, and it | 
was feathered down to the base of the bill—Mr. G. F. Barbour, 
of Bonskeid, exhibited to the society a fine specimen of the 
spotted rail, C7ea forzana. It was shot on the lands of 
Preston, near Linlithgow, in a bog on the hillside.—Note on 
the Nesting of the Kingfisher, Adcedo ispida, by Prof. Duns. 
The opening to the nest was twenty-two inches below the surface 
of the bank, and a little more than four feet above the water. 
The entrance to the nest was by a rounded passage, two inches 
wide at the front, increasing a little in size as it reached the oval 
chamber, or nest proper, and being only twenty-one inches long. 
The chamber was four inches broad, six long, and four high. 
After looking at the notices of the kingfisher’s nest in the litera- 
ture of ornithology, I find that the specimen before us sheds 
light on the following moot points:—r1. The passage did not 
slope upwards, but was horizontal, the bottom being about half 
an inch below the bottom of thenest. ‘‘ Instinct,” says Montagu, 
‘*has taught them to have the entrance to their habitation ascend- 
ing, by which means the filthy matter runs off.” The matter re- 
ferred to is the thin, watery foeces of the young birds, which soon 
becomes fetid. In this case the end indicated would be partially 
gained by the greater thickness of the small bones laid down in the 
passage than in the nest—the passage being thus brought to the 
level of the nest, and an imperfect kind of drainage supplied, by 
which, for atime, the watery fouling would be taken from the sur- 
face. 2. Thehole was not the old hole ofa water rat. 3. ‘Ihere 
were no traces of withered leaves or grass or feathers in the nest. 
The bottom was covered with the bones of minnows. ‘The nest 
proper was perfectly dry, though the passage, especially at the edge 
of the nest, was wet and fetid. As the bones when disgorged must 
have been wet, it would appear that the pellets must have been 
scattered by the birds and left to dry before the eggs were dropped. 
4. Itis evident from this specimen that the bones of small fishes 
are as truly the lining of the nest as feathers are of the nests of many 
other birds. —‘‘ Note on the Plaice,” F/atessa Vulgaris, by Prof. 
Duns. —‘‘ Note on Zithodes Maia, fem.,” by Prof. Duns. The speci- 
men was taken at Elie, Fifeshire, in December last. It isa female. 
When received it was loaded with spawn, attached to branching 
tubes, situated beneath the abdominal plates; the size and 
arrangement of the abdominal plates, the presence and state of 
the ova, and the light shed by this specimen on the spawning 
time, of which Bell and others say they know nothing, deserve 
to be noted. Lithodes Maia, though occurring in the Firth, is 
no doubt one of our rarer crabs. —‘‘ Note on Galathea strigosa,” 
by Prof. Duns, - New College.—Mr. C. W. Peach exhibited 
Antholithes and its fruit (Cardiecarfon) with specimens of 
Halonia, Flabellaria, and other fossil plants, from the Coalfield 
near Falkirk.—C. W. Peach exhibited a large collection of fossil 
plants from the coal at the Cleuch No. 1 pit, and the brickwork 
near Falkirk, last summer. Amongst them was a series of 
NATURE 

| Zonta, Ulodendron, &c. 
279 
Antholithes Titcairnie, some with its fruit, Cardiocarpon, attached 
this being the first instance of the kind at present known, He 
stated that Calamites, associated with magnificent fronds of 
Llabellaria Corassifolia, were abundant. Lepidodendron, Ha- 
&c., were much rarer ; altogether, they 
showed that the flora of the coal period of Scotland was varied 
and of great beauty. He added that they were more interesting 
from the fact that several of them were generically and speci- 
fically identical with plants described in his ‘* Acadian Geology,” 
by Principal Dawson, found in the coalfields of Canada and 
America, even to the minute shells of Spirorbis still adhering to 
the fronds of /vabellaria.—‘ Notice of the Discovery of a new 
locality, near Edinburgh, of the Lower Carboniferous rocks, 
having fossils equivalent to the Burdiehouse and Wardie Series,” 
by Mr. D. Gr Mr. Grieve read a notice of a new fossili- 
ferous deposit discovered by him in certain shales and sandstones 
at Lochend, near Edinburgh, and which are situated on the east 
side of the loch. Mr. Grieve was led to make a search in this 

| quarter from an indication given by Mr. Geikie, ten years ago, 
in his ‘*Geology of the Neighbourhood of Edinburgh,” that 
a continuity of the shales on the north side of the Calton Hill 
would likely be found between that place and Lochend, and 
which indication he had now verified. Mr. Grieve described the 
shales as belonging to the Lower Carboniferous formation, and as 
being equivalents of the sandstones and shales of Burdiehouse, 
Wardie, and Granton. He obtained Ca/amzites of larger size and 
better marked than those found in the other localities stated 
as being abundant in the sandstone ; Lefidodendra—a Lepido- 
phyllum, Sphenopterii, &c. Of fishes he had obtained a beautiful 
specimen of the genus Pa/oniscus, also scales, teeth, and spines, 
besides coprolites, which are abundant ; also numerous specimens 
of a small crustacean, identical with Cypris Scoto Burdigalense, 
or of anallied species. 
GLASGOW 
Geological Society, January 5.—Mr. E. A. Wunsch, V.P., 
in the chair. Carboniferous Fossils.—Mr. James Thomson read 
a paper on the occurrence of Calacanthus lepturus at Newarthill, 
and Paleoniscus Wardii at Possil. He briefly described the scales, 
fin-rays, and head-plates of CaVvacanihus which had been found 
in a detached form in the neighbouring coal measures, and which 
the examination of a nearly entire specimen from the Staffordshire 
coal-field had now enabled him to identify. It occurs in the 
upper members of the Carboniferous system in Scotland, in a 
shale overlying the ironstone of the Airdie coal-field. Both with 
regard to this and the other ichthyolite—the Pa/goniscus—hefore 
them, he remarked that he had had these forms for years in his 
cabinet, unnamed ; and it was only recently that Palconiscus 
Wardit had been described, and named specifically after its dis- 
coverer in the Staffordshire coal-field, Mr. John Ward of Long- 
town. It is found in the Possi] black-band ironstone, which is 
between four and five hundred fathoms below the position in 
which it occurs in Staffordshire, thus not only adding another 
form to the fauna of our Scottish coal-fields, but adding also to 
our knowledge of its range in‘ time. The lower beds of the 
Ayrshire coal-field had also yielded some specimens of this fossil. 
Mr. Thomson then exhibited specimens of A/izodopsis sauroides, 
Amphycentium granulosum, and Platysomus parvilus, from the 
Staffordshire coal-field, observing that the scales of A’hizodopsis 
had been found in our Scottish coalbeds, but as yet no complete 
specimen of the fossil had thence been obtained. Mr. Thomson 
also exhibited specimens of O/éhamia from Bray Head, near 
Dublin. He described minutely the position of the beds in 
which these fossils are found, and complained that geological re- 
ferences are frequently so vague as to be of little real service to 
one going over the ground for himself. Two species of this fossil 
had been discovered, O. antigua and O, radiata ; and they were 
generally believed to have been zoophytes allied to the Ser“/aria. 
Their precise nature, however, is still matter of discussion. They 
possessed a special interest as being, with the exception now of 
Eozbn Canadense, the oldest distinct traces that hal been found 
of life on the globe. Mr. Thomson further called attention to 
the wide unconformability presented by the Mountain Limestone 
near Dublin, resting, as it does, upon the Cambrian rocks on the 
north, and upon the granite on the south, side of the bay. 
PHILADELPHIA 
Academy of Natural Sciences, October 11, 1870.—Dr. Rus- 
chenberger, president, in_the chair. Mr, Thomas Meehan said 
he had noticed a singular habit in the common “Stink bug of 
