474 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Vegetable Kingdoms, he enquired why two varieties of chickens, fed from 

 the first day to full growth, were different ? It seemed to him more probable 

 that the results were due to different arrangements of the same kinds of 

 molecules rather than to different kinds of " germ-plasms." Ranunculus 

 heterophyllus, he pointed out, produced a " land-form" and a " water-form," 

 according to its environment ; it therefore exhibited both " heredity " and 

 " acquired characters." As the materials of its structure were the same 

 in both cases, the different results, he considered, must be due to different 

 arrangements of its molecules, and must be effected by Forces. The 

 sudden appearance of stomata on the " land form " illustrated a case 

 of forces normally "potential" while the leaf is submerged, becoming 

 •' actual " when the leaf developed in air. After some further deductions, 

 Prof. Henslow concluded that protoplasm and the forces bound up with it 

 were perfectly able to do all the work of transmitting parental characters, 

 as well as to acquire new characters, which in turn might become hereditary 

 as well. 



Zoological Society of London. 



November 3, 1891.— Professor W. H. Flower, C.B., LL.D., F.R.S., 

 President, in the chair. 



The Secretary read a report on the additions that had been made to 

 the Society's Menagerie during the months of June, July, August, and 

 September, 1891, and called attention to certain interesting accessions 

 which had been received during that period. 



The following objects were exhibited: — (1) on behalf of Mr. F. E. 

 Blauw, a stuffed specimen of a young Wondrous Grass Finch, Poephila 

 mirabilis, bred in captivity at his house in Holland ; (2) on behalf of Prof, 

 E. C. Stirling, a water-colour drawing of the new Australian mammal, 

 Notary ctes typhlops ; (8) by Mr. G. A. Boulenger, an Iguana with the tail 

 reproduced ; (4) by Mr. R. Gordon Wickham, a very fine pair of horns of 

 the Gemsbok, Oryx gazella, from Port Elizabeth, South Africa ; and (5) by 

 Dr. Edward Hamilton, a photograph of an example of the Siberian Crane, 

 Grus leucogeranus, shot on the island of Barra, Outer Hebrides, in August 

 last. [This proved to be an escaped bird. See ' The Field,' Nov. 14th.] 



Mr. R. Lydekker gave a description of some Pleistocene bird-remains 

 from the Sardinian and Corsican Islands. These belonged mostly to recent 

 forms, but to genera and species which in several instances had not been 

 found fossil. They showed rather more of an African character than the 

 present Avifauna of these islands. He also read some notes on the remains 

 of a large Stork from the Allier Miocene. These remains were referred to 

 the genus — closely allied to Ciconia — lately named Pelargopsis, but which 

 (that term being preoccupied) it was now proposed to rename Pelargoides. 



