Io6 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS 



said, a most repulsive look, and when attacked assumed the spiral 

 attitude. 



It was of a slate color, with lighter chequerings, had a broad 

 head two inches wide, large eyes, a length of about two feet three or 

 four inches, and body very thick. The caudal extremity was very 

 blunt, shaped like the end of a man's thumb. It had a number of 

 teeth, and not microscopical ones either, and a gape of mouth that 

 could have found little difficulty in swallowing a common barn-door 

 fowl's egg. 



The little ringed snake, Diadelphus punctatus, which, according 

 to Dr. Garnier, is viviparous, is hardly ever seen over twelve inches 

 long, and is invariably found in the interstices between the loose 

 bark and wood of decaying logs in the bush. It feeds on the ear- 

 wigs, small beetles, and other small insects that harbor in such 

 situations. 



Many hints and suggestions come to the front whilst following 

 one's ordinary avocations, and sometimes lurkmg and elusive truths 

 become manifest and give rise to a train of constructive thought. 

 The other day, while felling and splitting up a large oak tree, a 

 pecuharity of growth was observed in the timber that characterizes a 

 certain percentage of the oak trees. In splitting the trunk, the sur- 

 face of a section, from the circumference towards the heart or 

 centre of the tree, presents a rippled or wavy surface instead of the 

 even flat cleavage so much desired by mechanical workers in this 

 kind of wood. The fibres^ instead of the direct upward tendency 

 usual in symmetrical or free-splitting trees, are interlaced and woven 

 in amongst each other, giving to the wood the character known as 

 gnarliness. The object seems to be to give the tree the maximum 

 of power to resist strains, and the stress of adversity, such as winds 

 and blows from falling trees, that may go down or be overthrown in 

 the vicinity. This peculiarity of structure would seem to show that 

 a tree represents a dominant idea that is superior to the lapse of 

 time. For the unity, comprehensiveness, and integrity of design, 

 are imbedded in the cotyledon from the first sprouting of the acorn, 

 and are unvarying through the centuries clear to the solidification of 

 the last layer of sap deposited on the terminal sprays of the summer 

 of 1889, the pertinacity and fidelity seen in the adherence to the 

 generic formula of growth being remarkable in these samples of 



