Minutes of Proceedings. xlv 



Ordinary Monthly Meeting. 



Wednesday, February 27, 1889. 



Mr- W. H. Finlay, M.A., F.R.A.S., President, in the Chair. 



The undermentioned presents were announced and the thanks of 

 the Society voted to the donors : 



Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, loth 



Annual Report, 1886. 

 Geological History Survey of Minnesota, Bulletins Nos. 2, 3, 4. 

 Bulletin of the California Academy of Sciences, Vol. 2, No. 8. 

 Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Nos. 126, 127. 

 Smithsonian Report, 1885, Part 2. 



Mr. Bolus exhibited an orchid found (Jan. 2) on Constantia Berg 

 by Mr. Bodkin. It had been found about fifty years ago near Caledon, 

 and two years ago near Stellenbosch' — now, for the first lime, in the 

 Cape Peninsula. 



The Rev. G. H. R. Fisk exhibited specimens of the complete 

 series Homopiis Areolatus, Homopus Femoralis and Homopus Signatus 

 — the latter exhibited here for the first time alive. The specimen is 

 one of three captured in Clanwilliam. The other two have been sent 

 to the Zoological Society of London. 



The Rev. G. H. R. Fisk further exhibited a totally black shell of the 

 tortoise, Chersina Ungulata or Angulated Tortoise, found at 

 Verkeerde Vley near Touws River. The living animal was also totally 

 black. 



Mr. Trim en read a letter from Mr. Geo. Romanes requesting that 

 some members of the Society would take up experiments on the bite 

 of scorpions. The question to be decided was whe\,her the poison 

 glands are able to absorb the poison of bites inflicted by other 

 scorpions, that is to say, would scorpions if deprived of their poison 

 glands survive the bites of others. 



Prof. Guthrie brought forward a table for calculating heights from 

 barometric readings. Assuming the height of Kimberley as known,, 

 he deduced a factor by the means of which the known and calculated 

 heights of Aliwal North, Cradock and Graham's Town were shown to 

 agree very closely. 



