1878-1879.] 359 



may escape the eye. The hunter should always be prepared with 

 tools — a fern trowel, a naturalist's pick to fasten on a walking-stick, 

 a pocket knife, some string, and a good canvas bag with shoulder 

 straps. These will enable any plant to be lifted and carried home. 

 The reader then gave some humorous episodes of fern-hunting, as 

 also the finding of other objects of interest, and peeps into the 

 privacies of vegetable and animal life. 



Some interesting details were given as to the way of growing 

 ferns from spores, and the mode in which any peculiar character 

 in the parent may be transmitted to the seedlings, and also on 

 cross-fertilisation. 



The walls of the lecture-room were hung round with a very 

 fine collection ot upwards of 150 sheets of impressions of ferns, 

 nature-printed by a new process, showing in series some of the 

 newest forms, many of them so exquisitely divided and so fragile 

 that it seems almost impossible that the impressions could have 

 been printed from the ferns themselves. Some of the lecturer's 

 own findings from this neighbourhood were amongst those printed : 

 they were — Blechnum spicant trinervum, from the Mourne Moun- 

 tains ; Polystichum angulare rotnndatum, from Ligoniel ; Athyrium 

 filixfcemina Phillipsii, from Holywood. Besides these, a number 

 of very beautiful fronds were exhibited, showing different characters; 

 and in a pot the beautiful new variety, Blechnum spicant folios urn, 

 found by the lecturer on the Mourne Mountains. 



On 1 8th March, the Vice-president, Mr. Wm. Gray, M.R.I. A., 

 in the chair — when two communications were brought forward. 

 The first, entitled "Notes on the occurrence of Bauxite in Antrim," 

 was by Mr. Wm. Gray, M.R.I. A. The lecturer, after explaining 

 an extensive series of coloured diagrams illustrating the manner in 

 which this mineral was associated with the basalts, iron ores, and 



