302 Miscellaneous. 



procured small fragments, for the purpose of ascertaining the rate at which they 

 were now forming their layers. One of these is in the churchyard of Gresford, 

 near Wrexham, North Wales. Its trunk is 22 feet in circumference at the base, 

 and 29 feet just below its branches. It appeared from three sections that it had 

 formed on the average 34§- rings in one inch of the latest formed wood, and he 

 concluded that this tree might be considered at 1419 years old. 



The second tree is in the churchyard of Darley in the Dale, Derbyshire ; 

 and its mean diameter from measurements at four places is 1356 Mnes. 

 From sections made on the north and south sides, he found that the new wood 

 averaged 44 rings in an inch, and he concluded that this tree might be consider- 

 ed as 2006 years old. He accounted for these very old trees being met with in 

 churchyards, by supposing them to have marked the sites of places consecrated 

 to the dead, or devoted to some religious ceremony prior to the introduction of 

 Christianity. 



Professor Henslow differed from Mr Bowman, in his opinion that De Can- 

 dolle's rule underrated the ages of these trees, and referred him to the reasons 

 which he had already published in his Principles of Botany, for supposing that 

 De Candolle's estimate made them at least one-third older than they really were. 

 Mr Ball exhibited some skulls of a species of Irish seal, which he considered 

 to be hitherto undescribed as a native of Britain, and very distinct from the two 

 already known. Whilst the Phoca vitulina was readily tameable, this species 

 was never known to have been tamed. 



Professor Nilsson of Lund immediately recognized these specimens as belong- 

 ing to a distinct genus from Phoca, and which he had described by the name of 

 Haliochcerus griseus. It is common in the Baltic and North Sea, and occurs in 

 Iceland, and when full-grown is eight feet long. He remarked that the Phoca 

 vitulina of Linnaeus contained three species, and one of these, not hitherto re- 

 corded as British (the Ph. annellata,J he had seen in the Bristol Institution, and 

 which had been captured in the Severn. 



Dr Riley exhibited the stomach of this last mentioned individual, in which he 

 had found between thirty and forty pebbles, and stated it to be a vulgar notion 

 that these were of service to the animal in some way, by enabling it to catch its 

 prey with greater facility. Neither Sir Francis Mackenzie, Professor Nilsson, or 

 Mr Ball, each of whom had frequently dissected seals, had ever noticed the oc- 

 currence of pebbles in their stomachs. 



Dr Hancock described a new species of Norantea, which he had long consider- 

 ed to be identical with the N. Guianensis, but which he was now satisfied was 

 distinct. Aublet's plant is described as a tree 80 feet high, but the present 

 species is a large climber. 



Mr Hope exhibited an hermaphrodite specimen of Lucanus camcelus from 

 North America, in which the right side of the head was formed with a projecting 

 maxilla like the male, and the left with a contracted one like the female. A 

 similar monstrosity has occurred in the European Lucanus cervus. 



Mr Yarrell remarked, during a discussion which took place after the exhibition 

 of this specimen, that he had found both male and female organs to be present 

 on opposite sides of hermaphrodites among lobsters and birds which he had dis- 

 sected ; and he had met with a fish having hard roe on one side, and soft on the 

 other. He then alluded to some singular facts which he had noticed in an her- 

 maphrodite fowl, and which he proposed soon to make public. 



