38 Some Astronomical Problems. [Sess. 



The stockdove, we are informed by the Eev. Mr Morris, 

 " becomes easily tamed in confinement, and attached to its 

 companions and its adopted home." As my son keeps some 

 pigeons, I purpose transferring their eggs to the nest of a 

 stockdove and vice versd. I hope by this exchange to rear 

 some tame ones, in order that they may adorn our Scottish 

 Zoological Park; One bird [which Mr Speedy exhibited] had 

 fallen out of a nest in the park at Oxenfoord belonging to the 

 Earl of Stair. It was picked up by a gentleman staying at 

 The Inch, who brought it home and handed it over to me. 

 It is now nearly two years old, and has been confined in 

 an aviary beside common blue pigeons, not unlike itself, but 

 there has been no appearance of it mating. Several turtle- 

 doves are also beside it. The aviary is close to my bedroom 

 window, and I am often awakened in the early morning by 

 the goo-oo-oo of the stockdove. 



At the meeting of April 23 there was also read a brief 

 paper entitled " Note on the Bracken (Pteris aquilina)," from 

 the pen of Mr Stewart Archibald. 



VIII.— SOME ASTRONOMICAL PROBLEMS. 



By Mr T. CUTHBERT DAY, F.C.S. 



{Notes of a Paper read Oct. 22, 1913.) 



The science of Astronomy may be justly regarded as the most 

 advanced and the most exact of all the departments of human 

 knowledge. At this present time we have arrived, as far as 

 our finite minds will admit, at a fairly comprehensive concep- 

 tion, as a whole, of the universe in the midst of which we 

 find ourselves. It is but a broad outline — having, however, 

 many definite and exact details — which we possess ; and though 

 the advance has been enormous within the last 300 years, yet 

 how many things there are still beyond our comprehension, 



