BO Anniversary Meeting. [Nov. 30, 



Regarding the circumstances under which the remains were preserved, 

 Mr. Slater finds, from an examination of twelve caves, that these were 

 all formed by the action of water on coralline limestone, but that the beds 

 of earth in which the bones were deposited, and which vary from two to 

 nine feet in depth, are of basaltic material washed or blown into the 

 caves. Mr. Slater brings forward evidence in support of the hypothesis 

 that the birds were entombed subsequent to the visits of Europeans, and 

 that their entombment is due to their having taken shelter in the caves 

 during the fires that ravaged great parts of the island ; and that elsewhere 

 the Solitaire has been extirpated by imported cats and pigs, the former 

 of which, of large size and great ferocity, still abound. 



"With regard to the Tortoises, the remains of which are extraordinarily 

 numerous in the caves, there is evidence of their entombment having been 

 subsequent to that of the Birds ; but the direct cause of their extinction is 

 not apparent. Another noteworthy fact is that, whereas the marshes of 

 Mauritius have yielded the greatest number of Dodo remains, those of 

 Eodriguez appear to contain no bones of its ally the Solitaire or of any 

 other bird. 



Mr. Slater's fine collection was, by permission of the Council, exhibited 

 at Professor Flower's Soiree at the Eoyal College of Surgeons in July 

 last, and attracted great attention. 



Mr. G-ulliver has brought home an extensive collection of the animals 

 of the island, among which all classes are represented except some of the 

 Vertebrates ; of these last the most numerous are the Birds, which had 

 previously been described by Professor Newton. Ophidians are totally 

 absent ; and Amphibia also, although there are swamps of some extent. 

 The spiders seemed to abound ; and some new forms were collected, one 

 with an arrangement of the eyes that is unique in the class ; and another 

 spins a web so strong as to be used by the settlers as cobblers do " waxed 

 ends." 



The representation of winged insects by wingless allies, which is so 

 remarkable a feature in other oceanic islands, is not alluded to by Mr. 

 G-ulliver as characteristic of the insect fauna of Eodriguez ; nor has he 

 observed any correlation between the insects and flowering plants in 

 respect of the fertilization of the latter. 



Mr. Balfour's report on the Mora of Eodriguez is a very full one ; it 

 refers exclusively to living plants ; for though several of these are almost 

 extinct, no traces of fossil leaves or other parts of plants were found with 

 the birds' and tortoise bones or elsewhere. 



More than one half of the island appears to have been denuded by fires 

 of its indigenous vegetation, which has been replaced by introduced species 

 that are for the most part common social tropical weeds. The soil is 

 now for the most part arid, whence even the Perns, of which upwards of 

 20 species were found, are typical of dry regions. About 300 flowering 

 plants were collected ; and, as usual in insular floras, the proportion of 



