TBANSACTIONS Ot' SECTION D. 761 



The author, in conclusion, discussed the beaiinj^ of the facts presented on 

 the theory of evokition. We have many forms of degradational females in hexa- 

 pods, and we have true larval reproduction ; but he considers that the females of 

 the Phengodini oftar the most remarkable instances of imaginal or adult character- 

 istics associated with such truly larval characters. ' In this larviform female of the 

 Phengodini we get a glimpse, so to speak, into the remote past, from which has 

 been handed down to us, with but little alteration, an archetypal hexapod form 

 which prevailed before complete metamorphosis had originated ; while, on the other 

 hand, her male companion, during the same period, has developed wing-power and 

 the most elaborate and complex sensorial organs— the eyes and antennse in these 

 beetles being among the most complex of their order. 



' AVhether we believe that the female Phengodes has never reached beyond her 

 present form — i.e., represents a case of arrested development — or that she has re- 

 trogressed from a higher type where the sexes were more nearly alike, one thing is, 

 I think, self-evident, viz., that there is direct relation between the phosphorescence 

 and the remarkable differentiation of the sexes; and, further, that such relationship 

 is explicable and full of meaning on evolutionary grounds, and that the theory of 

 natural selection accounts for the facts better than any other.' 



Sub-Section BOTANY. 



1. On Cramer's Gemmce borne iy Trichomanes alata. 

 ]ji/ Professor F. O. Bower. 



2. On some point.-i in the 'process of Secretion iii, Plant-glands. 

 By Walter Gardiner. 



3. On Bennettites, the Type of a new group between Angiosperms and 

 Gymmisperms. By Count Solms-L.\ubach. 



4. On the Presence of Calliis-plates in the Sieve-tubes of certain giganlic 

 Laminarias. By F. W. Oliver.^ 



Summary of Results. 



I. That in all Laminariacece the medullary string contains trumpet-hyphte. 



II. That in Maci-ocystis, Neveocystis, and one unnamed Laminaria, these trumpet- 

 hyphae form callus. 



III. That in Macrocystis and Nereocystis sieve-tubes resembling those of Cucur- 

 bita occur around the central strand of hyphse, and become in time obliterated by 

 the development of callus on the sieve-plates. 



IV. That the callus, both of the sieve-tubes proper and of the trumpet-hyphte, 

 is identical in its reactions with the callus of phanerogamic sieve-tubes. 



V. That the callus in the trumpet-hyphae is formed from the cell-wall. 



VI. That Macrocystis and Nereocystis are rightly placed as nearly allied genera 

 by systematists, their anatomical structure entirely con6rming this determination. 



5. On the Physiology of some PhKophycecB. 

 By Thomas Hick, B.A., B.Sc. 



The author has made a series of observations and experiments in the larger 

 brown seaweeds found on the British coast for the purpose of determining whether 



' Vide Annals of Bjtany, vol. i. pt. 2 (1887). 



