560 NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 
in quite large numbers. Mr. Samuels also says that they never molest 
their feathered neighbors. I hawe repeatedly seen the fish hawk attack 
the night heron and pursue it for a short distance. There seemed to be 
no reason for these attacks, but the hawk appeared to be venting his ill- 
humor upon the poor heron for want of some other object. Once when 
fowl (the distance was too great to make out with certainty what it was), 
that was swimming by near its nest. The bird dove and the fish-hawk 
hovered about till it reappeared, when it renewed its attack. This per- 
formance lasted for a few a and ended by the fish hawk’s desisting 
from his assaults. — WALTER WOODMAN. 
GEOLOGY. 
GLACIERS IN PaLmozo1c TrMES.— In “Notes on an ancient Boulder 
Clay of Natal," Dr. Sutherland describes an ancient ** boulder clay," con- 
solidated into a clay stone porphyry, ‘“‘ perhaps of Permian age," which 
rested generally upon old Silurian sandstones, ps upper surface of which 
was often deeply grooved and striated. Mr. T. M'K. Hughes, while ad- 
atal beds, under discussion, enormous blocks of rock occurred, which 
were sixty or eighty miles from their original home, and still remained 
angular; and there was a difficulty in accounting for the phenomena on 
anl other hypothesis than that suggested. He still maintained the proba- 
bility of the occurrence of. glacial npa not only in the Permian, but 
in other ages, as he had done, now fifteen years ago 0.” — Proceedings of 
the eire Society of London, bera in Nature 
T AND FosstL CoPar. — At the meeting of the Linnean Society 
m thy 5th, Dr. J. D. Hooker read a communication from Dr. Kirk, 
Her Majesty’s Vice-Consul at Zanzibar, on the distinction between the 
recent and fossil states of the resin known in commerce as Copal. One 
characteristic by which fossil copal is known from the recent resin is the 
so-called **goose-skin." Dr. Kirk has ascertained that the fossil copal 
but 
pieces of the resin n a very high price even in that country. — Quar- 
terly Journal of Science. 
