﻿109 



some good captures on this occasion, the weather, which had 

 been very wet and cold for several days, still continued in the 

 same unpropitious state. Twenty-two members, however, 

 ventured to try their fortune ; but alas ! the paucity of 

 insect life was painfully apparent, and few indeed were the 

 insects netted, and those mostly dipterous. However, we 

 enjoyed a very lengthened walk through the beautiful scenes 

 for which the district is famed, Mr. Carrington missing no 

 opportunity of pointing out anything and everything which 

 was at all likely to interest his visitors ; and it was agreed by 

 all that the afternoon's walk, in spite of the weather, had 

 been most enjoyable, and that the neighbourhood of Wester- 

 ham was well worthy of future exploration. 



On the 2 1 St September the Society visited the Botanic 

 Gardens at Kew, and had a pleasant and instructive day ; in 

 fact, it might well be termed a red-letter day for those visitors 

 who were present. It was particularly fortunate that the 

 magnificent South American water lily, the Victoria regia, 

 was blooming. Those members who were early at the 

 Gardens saw the entire development of the inflorescence, 

 from the opening of the bud until the full expansion of the 

 flower, upwards of a foot in diameter, the beautiful circular 

 leaves of the plant, which are from six to eight feet in 

 diameter, looking much like floating tables covered with 

 velvet. The Palm House was then visited, and some idea 

 obtained of the luxurious growth of tropical vegetation, both 

 by walking on the paths under the trees and realizing, par- 

 tially, ^the sombre character of an intertropical forest, and then 

 by ascending into the gallery, where we were better enabled 

 to understand how each species struggled up towards the 

 light, and thus made the real flower-garden over head, instead 

 of as in our climate, under foot, or at any rate much nearer 

 the ground. 



The members then walked through the Arboretum to the 

 Temperate House. Here we find that the plants are arranged 

 phyto-geographically, so that the features which distinguish 

 the vegetation of the temperate regions of the whole earth 

 are presented in their respective divisions. We thus had a 

 good opportunity of seeing how much the singular vegetation 

 of Australasia differs from that of the other continents. The 



