270 
The Irish Naturalist 
December, 
IRISH SOCIETIES. 
ROYAL ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
Two young Chimpanzees which have been lately purchased are now 
exhibited in the excellent new Ape-house. Another very interesting 
purchase is the curious Anoa from Celebes. Other animals recently 
acquired are a pair of Capybaras, a pair of Patagonian Cavies, a Civet 
Cat, a Ring-tailed Coati, a pair of Curlews, two Pileated Jays, eight 
Francolins, three Troupials, two Tanagers, and a Cow-bird. Four Lion 
cubs have been born in the Gardens. 
Recent gifts include a Sulphur- crested Cockatoo from Dr. B. B. 
Ferrar, an Amazon from Miss Bradshaw, three Peafowl from Mr. T. 
Halpin. a Senegal Turtle-dove from Mr. H. B. Rathborne, five Guinea- 
pigs from Mr. T. Beatty, two Belgian Hares from Mr. G. P Beater, six 
Marsh Tits from Mr. W. J. Williams, a Greenland Redpoll, a Butcher 
bird, and a Fox-sparrow from Dr. J. Trunbull, a Black Vulture, a pair of 
Tyrant Birds, a pair of Yellow-billed Cardinals, a Black Troupial, a 
Bengalese Finch, and a pair of Guira Cockatoos from Mr. A. Goodbody, 
a Green Monkey from Mrs. Peyton, and a pair of Peafowl from Mr. 
Justice Wright. 
DUBLIN MICROSCOPICAL CLUB. 
October 10. — The Club met at Leinster House, the President (Prof. 
G. H. Carpenter) in the chair. The accounts for the past year were 
adopted, and the usual grant made towards the expenses of the Irish 
Natjiralisty in which the Club's proceedings are published. 
D. M'ArdIvE showed Tetraphis pelhtcida^ Hedwig., bearing the terminal 
gemmiferous cups, which are formed of four or five broadly reniform 
bracts, and enclose numerous paraphyses and stalked lenticular gemmae. 
This moss grows in dense tufts, bright green above, reddish below, one- 
half to one inch high. In the absence of fruit the plant may be known 
by these cups, which are borne on more slender and flexuose stems, 
bearing more uniformly-rounded ovate and more distant leaves than 
those on fertile plants, which have a stronger stem often branched, 
bearing imbricated leaves, the lower ones ovate and those near the apex 
of stem narrower. The genus is remarkable among mosses on account 
of the solid undifferentiated teeth of the peristome, and peculiar frondi- 
form leaves which, after germination, appear on the protonema at the 
first development of the moss stem ; in this species they disappear 
before the stem develops. The specimens were collected last year in 
the Correl Glen, Co. Fermanagh. 
H. J. Seymour exhibited a section of a volcanic ash formerly much 
used as a road metal in one of the southern counties of Ireland. The 
material was most unsuited for this purpose, as it consisted of a number 
of fragments cemented together by a small amount of calcite. On the 
