390 



Ordinary Meeting, June 10, 1920. 



The President (Sir Joseph C. Verco, M.D., F.R.C.S.) 



in the chair. 



« 



Papers. — ''A Revision of the Australian Noctuidae," by 

 A. Jeffries Turner, M.D., F.E.S.; ''Contribution to the 

 Orchidaceous Flora of Papua (British New Guinea)," by B. 

 S. Rogers, M.A., M.D., and C. F. White, F.L.S. 



Exhibits. — Professor Osborn exhibited a "Rome 

 Beauty" apple, showing pure-red skin colour over a sector 

 of the surface. The phenomenon was referred to as a bud 

 sport. Also photographs of a hybrid Delphinium which had 

 dark and pale-blue flowers, also some harlequin. It was con- 

 sidered that there had been a segregation of the colour factors 

 in the embryo. Dr. J. B. Cleland exhibited portion of the 

 root of a cultivated olive, IJ in. in diameter, cut through in 

 making a trench for water-pipes at Beaumont. The parent 

 tree was approximately 20 ft. away. Numerous roots, some 

 of larger diameter, from other olive trees had been also cut 

 through. Some rootlets were only about 2 J in. below the 

 surface, and other roots were about 2J ft. down, in a subsoil 

 of limestone. The olive is a notoriously hungry tree, ajBfecting 

 adversely the growth of other trees, such as almonds, planted 

 even a considerable distance away. The extensive root-spread, 

 enabling a wide stretch of soil to be exploited for water 

 during dry spells, explains this "hungriness." The superficial 

 position of many of the smaller roots shows that it may be 

 injurious to the tree to cultivate the soil anywhere near it. 

 This same trench in another place, near Glen Osmond, has 

 cut through roots of the carob-bean tree, up to 2 J in. 

 in diameter, at a distance of about 15 ft. from this hed^e. 

 Mr. Edwin Ashby exhibited a male and female of the Vic- 

 torian lyre bird (Menura novae-hollandiae victoriae, Gould). 

 The male was an exceptionally fine specimen, the tail 

 measuring 2 ft. 6 in. in length, and in perfect preservation, 

 was obtained in Gippsland. This specimen before being shot 

 gave a fine exhibition of its powers of mimicry. Besides its 

 natural note of "chunck chunck," and the imitation of the 

 twittering of some small birds that could not be identified, 

 it produced the songs and calls of the eleven following species 

 of native birds : — Butcher bird, gang-gang cockatoo, coach- 

 whip bird, funeral cockatoo, wattle bird, white-backed 

 magpie, crimson parrot, grey crow shrike, grey shrike thrush, 

 king parrot, and the white-throated thick-head . A hen bird 

 was watched while it hopped from bough to bough of a 

 wattle tree until 15 or 20 ft. high, and then volt-planed down 

 into the thick bush of the fern gully. Mr. , A. M. Lea 



