Proceedings. 149 
Nycticorax Caledonicus, recently shot in the suburbs of this city, 
close by the residence of His Honor Judge Horne. This bird has 
heretofore been only known as an inhabitant of the continent of 
Australia. 
Mr. G. A. Robinson presented two ladies’ tippets formed of the 
tips of gay-coloured feathers, arranged in tasteful patterns upon a 
foundation of lawn, lined inside with snow-white down; believed to 
be from Upper India. 
Mr. H. Hull presented some shells collected by him at Sandy Bay. 
Mr. Newman sent a large specimen of fossil wood found in a 
field upon Mr. Palmer’s farm, at Constitution Hill. 
Mr. Milligan mentioned that seeds of Alyxia buxitfolia have been 
sent to the Gardens ; and placed on the table specimens of compact 
gray limestone from the hills over the Brown’s River Road, about 
a mile northward from Mr. Cartwright’s house. This limestone 
appears to belong to the uppermost of the long series of fossilife- 
rous clay rocks intersected near Cartwright’s Bridge, and to lie at 
no great depth under the arenaceous breccia, forming the highest of 
the sedimentary deposits visible there under the greenstone. 
The Secretary submitted for inspection the perfect shell of an 
unusually large egg of the common barn-door fowl, having within 
it another perfectly formed shell of about the common size. ‘The 
theory of the fecundation and development to maturity of the two 
perfect ova, one within the other, gave rise to discussion, in which 
Drs. Agnew and Butler and others took part. 
The Secretary read a short paper by Mr. J. Maudsley on the 
nature, structural development, and reproduction of the Spherie 
of New Zealand and Tasmania, under the name of Clavaria crassa. 
The only recorded habitat of the Spheria of Van Diemen’s Land is 
that of Franklin Village, a few miles south from Launceston. Mr. 
Milligan mentioned having picked up the skin of such a grub 
distended, with the white punk-like substance characteristic of this 
parasitic fungus, in a grove of young wattle trees on the eastern 
side of the Windmill Hill, near Launceston. 
Ira Juty, 1851.—His Excellency Sir W. Denison, President of 
the Institution, in the chair, 
