36 *HE ZOOLOGIST. 



between 600 and 700 ft. Being within a mile or so of the county Cork 

 bouudary it also points to the probable extension of its range to this latter 

 county. — Reginald W. Scully (91, Lower Baggot Street, Dublin). 



SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 



Linnean Society of London. 



Nov. 20, 1890. — Prof. Stewart, President, in the chair. 



Mr. J. F. Braga and Rev. E. M'Clure were elected Fellows. 



Mr. G. Murray exhibited specimens of a fresh- water Delesseria, 

 previously unknown. 



On behalf of Mr. Henry Hutton, of Cape Town, Mr. B. D. Jackson 

 exhibited some follicles and seeds of a somewhat rare Asclepiad, Dregia 

 floribunda; and showed also, on behalf of Mr. W. Matchwick, some ripened 

 seeds of Ailanthus glandulosa, from a tree at Reigate, said to be a hundred 

 years old. 



Prof. Bower exhibited several drawings from microscopic sections of 

 carboniferous nodules belonging to Prof. Williamson, and pointed out the 

 peculiarities of structure. Microscopic details of such sporangia being very 

 rare, he remarked that a comparison of the slides showed a peculiar 

 uniformity of type. For a comparison of these sporangia from the coal he 

 exhibited sections of the sporangia of Todea barbara, and while not going 

 so far as to refer these carboniferous sporangia (which are not attached 

 to the plants which bore them) to any distinct genus, he thought the 

 Osmundaceous affinity was unmistakeable. 



Mr. J. E. Harting exhibited some original MSS. and water-colour 

 sketches of birds, fishes, and plants found in Sussex by William Markwick, 

 the friend and correspondent of Gilbert White, of Selborne, which had been 

 presented by him to the Society in his lifetime, and had been lost sight of 

 for many years. The drawings are sufficiently well executed to enable the 

 correct determination of several species which the author had failed to 

 identify. 



A paper was then read by Prof. T. Johnson (Dublin) on the systematic 

 position and affinities of Punctaria, a genus of brown sea-weeds ({Phceo* 

 phycece) founded in 1830 by Greville. The paper was illustrated by 

 explanatory diagrams, and a discussion followed in which Messrs. D. H. 

 Scott, E. M. Holmes, and G. Murray took part. 



Mr. Vaughan Jennings gave an abstract of a paper on a variety of 

 sponge, Alectona Millarl, Carter, boring in the shell of Lima excavata, from 

 the Norwegian coast. The sponge had endeavoured to grow inwards, 

 dissolving the nacreous layer and encroaching on the mollusc instead of 



