THE VICTORIAN NATUBALIST. 



By Mr. A. E Kitson, F.G.S. — Piece of pittosporum bush 

 showing honeycomb without honey in it. This was found 

 attached to a living bush in the open scrub along Ruby Creek, 

 Koorooman, near Leongatha. 



By Mr. G. A. Keartland. — Eggs of Bristle-bird, Sph'inura hroad- 

 benti, M'Coy, and White-headed Sittella, »S'. lei.icocephala, Old. 



By Mr. D. M'Alpine. — Large gall formed on Acacia implexa 

 by Uromycladium tepperianum ; Witches' Broom on Acacia 

 implexa, due to the same rust; Witches' Broom on Go^yipholobiicm 

 latijolium, due to Cronartium jacksonice ; and various rusts, in 

 illustration of paper ; also, abnormal apples formed under 

 bandage of graft. 



By Mr. E. B. Nicholls. — Short-nosed Bandicoot, Perameles 

 obesula, Shaw, from Western Australia. 



By Mr. W. Stickland. — Protozoan, Cothicmia, sp., probably 

 C. imberbis, from Preston. 



After the usual conversazione the meeting terminated. 



ON AN ABNORMAL LEAF OF GANGAMOPTERIS 



SPATULATA, M'Coy, FROM BACCHUS MARSH. 

 By F. Chapman, A.L.S., &c., Palaeontologist, National Museum. 



{Read before the Field Naturalists^ Olub of Victoria, 12th March, 1906.) 

 General Remarks. — The specimen to which thn following 

 notes relate was found in the Gangamopteris leaf-beds at Bacchus 

 Marsh by the Rev. A. W. Cress well, M.A., and exhibited by him 

 at a meeting of the Royal Society of Victoria a few years ago. 

 Mr. Cresswell has kindly presented this specimen to the National 

 Museum, and in view of the carious likeness of this leaf to 

 Glossopteris, a genus at present unknown in the Bacchus Marsh 

 beds, although associated with Gangamopteris elsewhere, there 

 seems sufficient reason for submitting the following remarks upon 

 it. 



The fossil consists of an impression of an ovate or spatuliform 

 leaf of the type of Gangamopteris spatulata, M'Coy,* preserved 

 in pale-coloured friable sandstone, of the kind usually occurring 

 in the leaf-beds at Bacchus Marsh. But for a cross fracture 

 dividing the leaf below the middle, the specimen would be 

 perfect. The elongate-reticulate venation of the leaf resembles 

 both that of Gangamopteris spattdata, M'Coy, and Glossopteris 

 gangamopteroides, Feistmantel.f 



The abnormality referred to consists in the presence of a 

 median sulcus, which at first suggests a comparison with Glos- 

 sopteris, whose chief distinctive character is its definite midrib. 



* Prod. Pal. Vict., Dec, ii., 1875, p. 12, plate xiii., figs, i, la. 

 f'Foss. Flora Australia," 1890, p. 125, plate xx., fig. 4. 



