SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 189 



and a discussion followed, in which Dr. St. George Mivart, Prof. Duncan, 

 and Mr. J. E. Harting took part. 



The meeting adjourned to April 17th. 



April 17. — Mr. Carruthers, F.R.S., President, in the chair. 



Messrs. E. C. Galpin, T. Johnson, W. F. Kirby, J. B. Carruthers, and 

 J. S. Turner were elected Fellows. 



Lord Arthur Russell, on behalf of the subscribers to a portrait of 

 Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, which had been painted at, their request by 

 Mr. Hubert Herkomer, R.A., formally presented the portrait to the Society, 

 and in a few words expressed the satisfaction which he was sure would be 

 felt at the acquisition of the likeness of so distinguished a botanist. It was 

 announced that a photo-gravure of the portrait was in preparation, of 

 which a copy would be presented when ready to every subscriber to the 

 portrait fund. 



Prof. P. M. Duncan, F.R.S., exhibited a vertical section through a large 

 coral Fungia echinata, cutting through and across the septa and synapticulae 

 and the so-called base. The union of the sides of contiguous septa at the 

 base is either incomplete or by means of synapticulse. 



Dr. Edward Fischer, of Zurich, exhibited and made remarks ou certain 

 species of Polyporus bearing a sclerotium possessing the structure of 

 Pachyma cocos, but it was doubtful whether the Polyporus represented the 

 fructification of the Pachyma, or was merely parasitic on it. Mr. George 

 Murray expressed himself in favour of the latter view. 



Mr. J. E. Harting exhibited alive a so-called " singing-mouse," which 

 had been captured at Maidenhead a weak previously, and which uttered 

 sounds like the subdued warbling of a Linnet. He desired to be informed 

 whether the cause usually assigned for the phenomenon was correct — 

 namely, some obstruction or malformation of the trachea. Prof. Stewart 

 stated that he had observed alive, and dissected when dead, a similar 

 specimen, and had found no trace of any organic disease or malformation. 



Sir Charles Sawle, Bart., exhibited a specimen of the Little Green 

 Heron, Butorides virescens, of North America, which had been shot by his 

 keeper at Penrice, St. Austell, Cornwall, in October last, and which he had 

 sent for preservation to a taxidermist at Bath. Mr. J. E. Harting offered 

 some remarks on the occurrence, and suggested various ways in which the 

 bird might have reached England. He observed that the larger American 

 Bittern, Botaurus lentiginosus, had been met with some five-and-twenty 

 or thirty times in the British Islands, and, strange to say, had been 

 described and named by an English naturalist, and a Fellow of this Society, 

 Colonel George Montagu (who obtained a specimen of the bird in Dorset- 

 shire) a year before it was described by Wilson as a native of the United 

 States. 



