5020 Linnean Society. 



Proceedings of Societies. 

 Linnean Society. , 

 January 15, 1856. — Thomas Bell, Esq., President, in the chair. 



Exhibitions. 



The Rev. C. A. Johns exhibited a drawing, together with a specimen of Sphaeria 

 militaris, found by him in June last, growing from the interior of a pupa, among dead 

 leaves, in Bickleigh Vale, Devonshire. 



Mr. Saunders observed that this fungus was well known, although not commou : 

 he found it last year near Stokesley, in Yorkshire, and made drawings, which he 

 should be happy to exhibit. This species invariably grows on the pupee of Lepi- 

 dopterous insects. 



A long and interesting discussion followed, in which Mr. Babington, Mr. West- 

 wood and others took part. [There is a second species of Sphaeria found in England 

 growing on dead insects : Dickson was the first to notice it ; he figures it on the larva 

 of some carabideous insect, and describes it under the name of Peziza entomorhiza, 

 giving the habitat in larvis insectorum emortuis. — Crypt, i. 22, tab. in. Jig. 3]. 



Mr. Saunders exhibited several vegetable productions, sent to him from Natal by 

 Mr. R. W. Plant, together with a wax-like deposit, in spheroid lumps about as large 

 as a marble, which had been gathered from a tree, and each of which contained the 

 dermal envelope of a female Coccus. 



A discussion followed, as to the properties of the wax, in which Mr. Hanbury and 

 others took part. 



Lepidosiren and Allied Genera unquestionably Fishes. 



Mr. Newman read a paper intituled 'Notes on the Lepidosiren annectans,' in 

 which he advocated Professor Owen's view, as to its ichthyic nature. He thought its 

 affinity to the amphibious reptiles was very slight, and called attention to the fact 

 that those metamorphotic reptiles with which it had been compared, were either in an 

 immature and confessedly ichthyic condition, as the tadpole of the common frog; or 

 the more mature Siren and Proteus, in which the larval condition appeared per- 

 manent: he also invited attention to the teeth, and pointed out their similarity to 

 those of Echiodon Drummondii ; and to the continuity of the dorsal, anal and ventral 

 fins, a decided character of the Mimenidse, and again to the scales and lateral line ; 

 the scales were very perfect and precisely those of a fish ; and no scales whatever 

 existed in any amphibian reptile : the lateral line was moreover not only exclusively 

 confined to fishes, but particularly characteristic of that class of vertebrates. He con- 

 sidered the most interesting character of the creature to be its skeleton, which 

 Professor Owen had described as exactly intermediate between the osseous and carti- 

 laginous types; and served to connect the Muranidae among the former with the 

 Petromyzontidae among the latter. 



Rectification of Statements on the Economy of a Pelopaus. 



Mr. Newman read a critical notice of a paper lately printed in the ' Proceedings' 

 of the Society, in which he pointed out several palpable errors; a wasp of the 



