66 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST 
Papers read:—1. By Mr. H. Watts, on ‘Staining vegetable 
tissues for the microscope.” The writer exhibited an enlarged 
drawing of a stained section, and described his experience in double 
staining. . 
2. she hon. secretary read a paper by the Rey. Dr. Woolls, 
F.L.S., entitled “Sanitary Properties of Eucalypts.” The writer 
recommended eight species of Eucalypts which were likely to prove 
useful, where on account of climatic or geologic circumstances, LH. 
globulus could not be grown. 
3. The Rev. A. W. Cresswell read a paper by Mr. A. W~- 
Howitt, F G.S., entitled ‘ Notes on a basalt-vitrophyr from River 
Tanjil valley, Gippsland.” This was shown to be a glassy basalt 
from a yolcanie formation, which had flowed ever the bed of an 
~ ancient river, altering the gravel comprising the bed into a solid 
quartzoze rock, locally termed ‘cement ” Specimens of the rocks. 
were exhibited and also sections under the microscope. 
4. By Mr. F. Reader, “ Notes on some hitherto unrecorded 
Victorian fungi,” being a description of several species new to 
Victoria, collected by the writer in Studley Park, and elsewhere near 
Melbourne. 
Baron F. von Mueller, K.C.M.G., F.R.S., forwarded as also 
applying to this colony an extract from the ‘‘ Gardener’s Chronicle” 
in which attention was called to the wholesale destruction of native 
plants in England, and recommending botanists, and members of 
field clubs to discountenance wholesale sales of native plants, and 
the removal of rare plants for cultivation without special objects. 
Mr. C. A. Topp, M.A., read a note on a curious growth of 
fungi found by Mr. Tisdall in the Long Tunnel Mine, Walhalla, 
800 feet below the surface. 
The following were the principal exhibits of the evening:—By 
Rey. W. M. Alexander, 122 specimens of woods; by Mr. F. G. A. 
Barnard, native orchids in bloom, Pterostyl’s curta, P. nana, P, 
nutans, and P. pedunculata; also branches of native shrub 
Myoporum insulare, all grown by the exhibitor; by Miss F. M. 
Campbell, 100 species of Australian lichens; by Mr. A. Coles, two. 
pheasants from Samoa, woodcock, and Canadian quail; by Mr. J. 
i. Dixon, 1are Victorian beetle, Natal’s ttana, also mason wasp, 
and nest; by Mr. C. French, F.L.8., lepidoptera from Sumatra, the 
rare beetle, Neolamprina Auelleri, from North Queensland, also 
specimens of a destructive Australian moth Agrot?s vastator, the 
larve of which feed on the roots of cereals; by Master C. French, 
album of dried orchids, genus Pterostylis; by Mr. J. T. Gillespie, 
twenty-six species of Victorian birds eggs; by Master Hill, orehid 
Prasophyllum elatum; by Mr, H. Hunt, a fan-tailed euckoo, 
Cacomantis flabelliformis, (alive); by Mr. A. W. Howitt, F.G.S., 
hand specimeas and sections for the microscope, of the rocks im 
