389 



Winter Session 



Note.— The Authors of the various Papers of which abstracts 

 are given, are alone responsible for the views expressed in them. 



ANNUAL CONVERSAZIONE. 



The forty-eighth Winter Session was inaugurated by a Con- 

 versazione held in the Assembly Buildings on 28th October. The 

 assemblage, which numbered three hundred, included the Lord 

 Mayor and party. After tea, the company examined the scientific 

 exhibits displayed on tables in the body of the fine hall, the 

 various exhibitors giving informal lecturettes to those interested. 

 By kind permission of the Lord Mayor, the insignia of the City 

 of Belfast, including the official chain, maces, loving cup, seals, 

 charters of James I. and George II., grant of arms, &c, were on 

 exhibition, and proved a source of much interest. 



In the Zoological Section Mr. F. Balfour Browne, M.A., 

 F.Z.S., F.R.S.E., showed a new and ingenious method of storing 

 a working collection of Insects. Mr. George Donaldson's exhibit 

 of British Lepidoptera included Gonepteryx rhamni and living 

 caterpillars of Fox Moth. In his collection of rare Irish Woodlice 

 Mr. N. H. Foster, M.B.O.U., exhibited Metoponorthus melanurus 

 and Eluma purpurascens, two survivors of the ancient Lusitanian 

 fauna which have only been found in the British Isles in County 

 Dublin. Mr. Foster also exhibited maps showing the progress of 

 distributional records of Woodlice in Ireland for the past five 

 years. Mr. W. A. Green, F.R.S.A.I., showed a finely mounted 

 collection of Land and Freshwater Mollusca; Mr. VV. F. M'K.inney, 

 Spanish and Australian Shells, and Leaf-insects from Ceylon ; and 



