Yorkshire Naturalists' Club. 2617 



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the cause of cholera, was impossible ; but from the observations he had now laid be- 

 fore the Society, he considered that such a cause for the production of cholera had 

 not yet been demonstrated. 



Mr. Woodward said that he believed that things which persons took into their 

 stomachs might produce some of the appearances described by Drs. Brittan and others. 

 Mr. Topping had shown him, under the microscope, the ordinary chalk mixture, and 

 the appearance presented by this substance was precisely similar to some of the things 

 figured in the drawings from Bristol. 



Mr. Varley, in support of the probability of the truth of the fungoid theory, gave 

 an account of the rapid development of Fungi in the bodies of flies, and exhibited 

 drawings of the same. 



Dr. Lankester said that he did not think the supporters, or rather reproducers, of 

 the fungoid theory, would have thought their observations sufficient to warrant their 

 conclusions, if there had not already existed the hypothesis of the fungous origin of 

 cholera. From the first time he had seen the drawings of Dr. Brittan, he had doubted 

 the correctness of the conclusions of Dr. Budd and the subsequent advocate of the 

 fungous theory. In the published drawings of Drs. Brittan, Budd and Swayne, many 

 things had been evidently confounded under the common term Fungus. Inorganic, 

 as well as organic, bodies of various kinds could be easily identified. He had at first 

 failed to detect any bodies resembling Fungi at all, but in the preparation he had re- 

 ceived from Dr. Swayne he recognized the spore of a Uredo, as had been described 

 by Dr. Busk. He had obtained the same appearances as exhibited in some portions 

 of Mr. Swayne's preparations, and the drawings of Dr. Brittan, from gruel, which 

 was a not unlikely substance to supply the materials for the phenomena described. 

 Some of the bodies figured as Fungi by the Bristol observers were evidently epithe- 

 lial scales in different stages of disintegration ; and the same bodies which had also 

 been said to be fungoid had been found in the contents of the bladder. 



Yorkshire Naturalists' Club. — The monthly meeting of this Club was held on 

 Wednesday evening, October 3rd, in Archbishop Holgate's school-room ; Professor 

 Phillips in the chair. The chairman made some interesting observations on the re- 

 cent discovery of the remarkable fossil Batrachian (Labyrinthodon Bucklandii) in the 

 new red sandstone, and exhibited a full-sized drawing of the head, which is in the 

 possession of Dr. Lloyd : the length of this gigantic frog must have been nearly four 

 feet. Mr. Graham exhibited an exotic male specimen of the new British warbler 

 (Sylvia Orphea), with the eggs : he obtained a female some short time back, which 

 was shot at Wetherby, on the 6th of July last, and is now in Mr. Milner's collection : 

 this bird much resembles the blackcap (Curruca atricapilla), but is quite distinct from 

 it. Dr. Morris read a short account of this bird from the October number of the 

 ' Zoologist.' Mr. Graham also showed a specimen of Buffon's skua (Lestris parasiticus), 

 obtained from Kedcar ; an extremely rare bird so far south : three specimens are 

 known to have been obtained recently in Yorkshire, during the prevalence of strong 

 north-easterly gales. Dr. Morris also read accounts from the ' Zoologist,' of the oc- 

 currence in Yorkshire, lately, of specimens of the purple heron (Ardea purpurea) at 

 Lowthorpe, and of the fulmar petrel (Procellaria ylacialis) near Bridlington, recorded 

 by the Rev. F. O. Morris. Mr. Acroyd Smith gave to the Club, for presentation to 



