1901-1902. J 49 



the science of pterylography, by which experts can tell at once 

 to what group any particular bird belongs, and often even to 

 which species. Mr. Foster then described the structure of a 

 feather, the strong central shaft of a " quill " feather, along 

 each side of which are hundreds of little straight branches set 

 very close together, usually called a web. Along each of these 

 branches there are other little branches called barbules, the 

 larger ones being known as barbs. Half of the barbules have 

 inturned edges, whilst the other half have long and delicate 

 booklets, which seize the inturned edges and hold them fast. 

 Thus it is difficult to pull the web apart, as the small booklets 

 have to be pulled away from the inturned edges next the 

 barbule. It is to this power of resistance that birds owe their 

 powers of flight, to a large extent. Flightless birds, such as 

 the ostrich, have no booklets, and so their feathers cannot 

 form a web. To give an idea of the number of barbules, on 

 a piece of the web about 15 inches long of a crane's quill 

 feather there were counted no less than 650 barbs, each one 

 of which bore about 600 pairs of barbules — ^that is almost 

 800,000 barbules for the inner web alone of a single feather. 

 Mr. Foster concluded an interesting paper by describing the 

 process of moulting, and appealed to the ladies to help the 

 preservation of rare birds by refusing to wear feathers in any 

 form. The paper was illustrated by lantern slides showing 

 structure of feathers. 



Mr. Robert Welch then exhibited a large number of views 

 of different subjects, giving a short description of each. 

 Several slides were shown illustrating the living fishing line, 

 Lineus marinus, which may be found on almost any of our 

 shores, coiled up under stones between tides into what seems 

 a veritable tangle. This worm, on uncoiling, seems able to 

 stretch itself almost indefinitely, hence the incredulity ex- 

 pressed even by well-known naturalists, who should have 

 known better, when the Rev. Hugh Davis described it in the 

 Linnean Society's Transactions many years ago. Gosse, Chas. 

 Kingsley, and others also had to defend themselves from the 

 charge of " drawing the long bow." Kingsley retorted on hie 



