444 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



[Oct. 26, i? 



of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society to 

 the extreme poverty of bronze implements in the 

 museum. He should welcome any additions to this 

 part of the collection, and be exceedingly grateful for 

 any help that he could get in filling this blank. Passing 

 from the prehistoric, they now came to the collection 

 which represents the historic period ; first and foremost 

 among which they found an interesting number of things 

 from Egypt. They had a most remarkably preserved 

 group of mummies, found recently by Mr. Flinders 

 Petrie, and presented to the Museum by Mr. Jesse 

 Haworth . Two are of a period which ranges from about 

 Anno Domini to 200 years before Christ ; while the 

 third is of an early Greek type, which was found in 

 Egypt, and dates from A.D. to 150 A.D. The interest 

 of the last was exceedingly great from an artistic point of 

 view. On the head of the mummy was a most excel- 

 lently preserved portrait of the occupant. The preserva- 

 tion was simply marvellous ; the art singularly excellent ; 

 and the discovery altogether an important one. All 

 these three mummies had been found in a deposit of 

 sand near the ancient city of Arsinoe, and they repre- 

 sented burials which took place from time to time of the 

 citizens of that great city. They would also see in the His- 

 toric rooms specimens from Babylonia, Rome, Australia, 

 the South Sea Islands, Mexico, and North America. In 

 conclusion, Professor Boyd Dawkins said that of course, 

 naturally after the examination of ancient history of the 

 earth, when they had closed their record at the historic 

 period, they there had full scope for the working out of 

 the history of animals and Ihe plants to which the rest of 

 that part of the museum was devoted. They had, in 

 other words, a philosophical arrangement showing the 

 gradual evolution of things in the Tertiary ages which is 

 still going on, and which finds expression in the history 

 of the present surface of the earth and of the living 

 animals, including man, and of the living plants. 



NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 

 The first meeting of the winter session was held on 

 Tuesday, 25 th September, Mr. P. Ewing, Vice-President, 

 in the chair. 



Mr. D. Pearson exhibited a living specimen of the 

 Australian piping-crow (Gymnorhinus tibiceii). The bird 

 belongs to an Australasian group, readily distinguishable 

 from the true Corvidce by the peculiar form of the 

 nostrils, which are long, narrow, sunk in the substance of 

 the bill, and usually quite exposed. The black and 

 white plumage is rather handsome, and bears some re- 

 semblance to that of the magpie. The piping notes of 

 the bird are not unmusical, and compare favourably with 

 the song of most others of its tribe. In captivity it dis- 

 plays excellent powers of mimicry. 



Mr. J. Steel showed a glass jar with sea water, con- 

 taining hundreds of the larval form of the common shore 

 crab (Carcinus mcenas), and remarked that in their early 

 stage of development these Crustacea are pelagic rather 

 than littoral as regards their haunts. 



Mr. H. McCulloch exhibited a specimen of Goliathus 

 cacicus, a large and beautifully-coloured beetle, from Old 

 Calabar, Western Africa. 



Mr. J. J. F. X. King showed a series of specimens of 

 CEcetis notata, a neuropteron recently captured by him 

 on the Liffey, near Dublin. He stated that the insect 

 has occurred in various parts of England, but is new to 

 the Irish fauna. 



Mr. D. A. Boyd made some remarks on Smynthnrus 

 and Papirhts, two genera of Collembola, or " spring- 

 tails," and exhibited a series of specimens of these 

 insects taken near West Hilbride, Ayrshire. He also 

 showed fertile specimens of Bartmmia Halleriana and 

 Fontinalis squamosa, two mosses from the neighbourhood 

 of Largs. 



Mr. T. King, Vice-President, showed an extensive 

 collection of fungi from the district around Glasgow, in- 

 cluding Agaricus scobinaceus, A. platyphyllus, and other 

 species of more or less rarity. 



Mr. W. Stewart exhibited five species of 'Pesisa, in- 

 cluding two apparently new to the British flora. 



Rev. A. S. Wilson, M.A., B.Sc, read a paper on the 

 " Dispersion of Seeds and Spores," in which he described 

 the various natural appliances for insuring the suitable 

 distribution of these objects, and the means by which the 

 dispersion is aided or effected. The paper was illus- 

 trated with diagrams and specimens. 



MANCHESTER GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 

 The annual meeting was held on October 9th, Mr. 

 Joseph Dickinson, the President, in the chair. 



Mr. Mark Stirrup, Honorary Secretary, read the annual 

 report of the Council. In it they state that as this was 

 the fiftieth year of the Society's existence it was thought 

 desirable to review its history as recorded in the minutes, 

 books, and publications. The Society was founded by a 

 resolution passed at a meeting of the friends of geolo- 

 gical science held on October 15th, 1838, at the York 

 Hotel, King Street, now the site of the Manchester and 

 County Bank. This meeting was presided over by Lord 

 Francis Egerton, afterwards the first Earl of Ellesmere, 

 and the objects of the Society's foundation were then 

 declared to be : " To investigate the mineral and organic 

 remains of the earth, to inquire into statistics, machinery, 

 maps, models, and mining records ; to publish the trans- 

 actions of the Society, with suitable illustrations, and to 

 form a museum to be opened gratuitously to the public." 

 The first annual meeting was held in the rooms of the 

 Royal Institution, Mosley Street, on January 17th, 1839, 

 under the presidency of James Heywood, F.R.S., who, 

 with about four other members, were still living. At the 

 end of this year Mr. Heywood offered the greater part of 

 his house in Mosley Street, at the corner of St. Peter's 

 Square (now the Clarendon Club), and the Society went 

 thereio. The rapidly increasing collection of fossils was 

 also removed there,and a beginning was made in arranging 

 the names and specimens. The British Association 

 visited Manchester for the first time in 1842, and 

 materially assisted the Society by a grant of ^,"100 from 

 its funds towards arranging its collection. Shortly after 

 this an arrangement was entered into between the Society 

 and the Natural History Society for the amalgamation of 

 their geological collections. The amalgamated collection 

 was thenceforward housed at the Museum in Peter Street 

 (where the Society also met), until in the year 1873, by 

 general agreement, the whole collection was transferred 

 to the Owens College, under stipulations as to mainten- 

 ance and care, the free admission of members and of 

 the public on certain days, and that the College should 

 provide a fitting building for the museum. By providing 

 accommodation for the united collection in the new 

 building in Oxford Road, the Owens College had admi- 

 rably redeemed its pledge. The collection, rearranged 

 and renamed by Professor Dawkins and his assistants, 



