500 [Proc. B.N.P.C., 



of these handsome groups have been obtained for the Belfast 

 Natural History and Philosophical Society through the exer- 

 tions of the Ulster Fauna Committee, the former having been 

 presented to the Society by Mr. James Thompson, J. P., 

 Macedon, and the latter by Major Percival Maxwell, D.L., 

 Finnebrogue, Downpatrick, on whose estate the marten was 

 captured. There were also on exhibition an excellent set of 

 beetles from County Armagh, for which the Rev. W. F. John- 

 son, M.A., obtained a Club's prize last year ; a fine set of local 

 lepidoptera, exhibited by Mr. Isaac Waugh ; and a number of 

 aquaria, and glass jars containing various strange live animals, 

 which were under the superintendence of Mr. John Hamilton. 

 There were shown the well-known but seldom seen chameleon, 

 the curious little green tree-frog, the large American bull-frog, 

 and a beautiful green lizard ; while the glass jars swarmed with 

 newts, water-scorpions, water-beetles, cray-fish, and many 

 smaller forms of aquatic life. In the department of botany, Mr. 

 R. Lloyd Praeger, M.R.I.A., showed a series of very rare plants 

 from County Armagh, the result of a few weeks botanising in 

 that neighbourhood ; several of these have not been previously 

 found in Ireland, and none of them are recorded from the 

 north-central district of Ireland. The same exhibitor showed a 

 series of plants illustrating the additions to the flora of the 

 North-east of Ireland since the publication of Messrs. Stewart 

 and Corry's work on the subject, and also a number of the 

 rarest plants obtained on the Club's excursions of the past 

 season. A beautiful stand of exotic ferns and foliage plants, 

 artistically grouped, were shown by Mr. Charles M'Kimm, cura- 

 tor of the Belfast Botanic Gardens ; this collection included 

 over sixty different varieties of the maiden-hair fern {ddiantum). 

 At the lower end of the room a magnificent series of dried and 

 mounted specimens of species and varieties of British ferns were 

 exhibited by an "old hand" at this subject, Mr. W. H. Phillips, 

 F.R.H.S. ; the same gentleman, in company with Mr. Praeger, 

 was responsible for a collection of several hundreds of fresh- 

 cut fronds of choice varieties of British ferns, which were 



