34 



been fissured. The case adduced by Mr. Gray was that of a stone 

 celt, which showed clearly the formation of one or more coats, 

 evidently due to decay penetrating inwards from its artificially- 

 formed surface. He subsequently, at the Annual Conversazione of 

 the Club, exhibited the stone axe to which he had alluded, and 

 which showed a remarkable similarity to the decomposing spheroidal 

 masses, commonly thought to have received their spheroidal lami- 

 nated structure by original concretionary action, while solidifying 

 from the molten state. But in the stone axe, no such supposition 

 could be for a moment entertained, as no original concretionary 

 structure could grow from a central nucleus outwards in a mass of 

 basalt, so as to have coats already existing in it of the exact form 

 of a stone axe, with sharp edge, before the bringing out by the 

 hands of men of the special form designed for them for their own 

 requirements. 



On Wednesday evening, ist December, a paper was read by 

 Mr. J. J. Murphy, F.G.S., on "The Origin of Organs of Flight." 

 Thought not an adherent of Darwin, he took the development 

 theory as proved, and proceeded to apply it to the organs of 

 flight. Perfectly developed wings were found in four classes of 

 animals — birds, bats, pterodactyles (a race of flying reptiles, found 

 only in a fossil state), and insects. But there are races having an 

 imperfect power of flight, by means of membranes stretched along 

 their sides, which serve as parachutes, and by means of which they 

 take long, gliding leaps. The flying squirrel is one of them, the 

 flying opposum another, and the flying lemur a third. Specimens 

 of these, from the Queen's College Museum, were exhibited. 



Mr. Murphy agreed with Darwin that the origin of the bat's wing 

 was probably such a membrane ; and he thought the same of that 

 of the pterodactyle. Specimens belonging to the Belfast Museum 

 were exhibited of the draco, a small lizard, which has a somewhat 

 similar membrane, and uses it in the same way. Mr. Wallace has 

 lately discovered, in Borneo, a tree frog, which has the same power 

 of gliding through the air, by means of its enormously large webbed 



