ON THE ANTHUOPOLOGICAL MEASUREMENTS TAKEN AT BATir. 435 



By an oversight the time for drawing the sum of 5Z. placed at the 

 disposal of the Committee was permitted to lapse before application for 

 the money was made, consequently no part of the sura has been received 

 by the Committee, bat liabilities have been incurred to the extent of the 

 grant for clerical aid and other incidentals connected with the preparation 

 of this Report and for record books, &c. The Committee therefore request 

 that the grant made last year be continued, and that a further sum of 5?. 

 be placed at its disposal for calculating and recording the results of the 

 Laboratoiy to be opened at the Newcastle meeting of the Association this 

 year. For the purpose of carrying on this work the Committee seeks to 

 be reappointed. 



Second Report of the Committee, consisting of Mr. A. W. Wills 

 {Chairman), Mr. E. W. Badger, and Professor Hillhouse, /or 

 the purpose of collecting information as to the Disappearance 

 of Native Plants from their Local Habitats. By Professor 

 Hillhouse, Secretary. 



As intimated at the close of the report for 1887 ' the Committee have 

 given their attention in the first instance to Scotland, and append hereto 

 such portion of the materials placed at their disposal as, for any reason, they 

 consider desirable to publish. They have excluded a considerable number 

 of plants of little interest, and especially such as the records show to be 

 recent introductions, casuals, escapes, &c., the loss of which is only a 

 return, therefore, to an earlier, but still recent, state. There is little doubt 

 that the list, even thus restricted, will be considerably amplified hereafter. 



The plants recorded are numbered in accordance with the ' London 

 Catalogue,' ed. 8, in which the distribution census of each plant will be 

 found. Nearly all of the records are on the authority of some competent 

 botanist resident in the locality, whose initials, or some distinguishing 

 initials, are appended. As has been pointed out by more than one corre- 

 spondent, scarce plants occasionally well-nigh disappear in particular 

 seasons, and hence the records of other than frequent visitors are not fully 

 reliable. 



The attention of botanists is particularly drawn to the I'ecords under 

 the numbers 52, 264, 374, 406, 570, 575, 687, 910, 932, 993, 1,018, 1,020, 

 1,478, 1,695, and 1,772, as giving examples of divers ways, often very 

 curious and interesting, in which plants can become extinct. 



The attention of the Committee's correspondents has been in the main 

 confined to complete or threatened extinction ; but in addition to this 

 there is a general consensus of opinion that the rarer and more conspicu- 

 ous Alpine plants are less abundant than they used to be. Amongst the 

 localities specially mentioned are Clova and 13en Lawera ; such plants (in 

 addition to those given in the list) as Saxifmga eernua, Alsine riihella, 

 Oeniiana nivalis, ttc, are notably less frequent than twenty years ago. 

 Strange rumours have been communicated to the Committee as to the 

 disappearance of plants from accessible habitats within the range of some 

 ■of the deer ' forests,' but they arc unable to verify these statements. ^Most of 

 *he correspondents agree, however, that the injudicious action of botanists 



' The Committee were unable to report in 1888, having lapsed by accident. 



F F 2 



