BuTTEIiWORTH : OoAL PlANTS. 



151 



and now it is becoming very scarce. The apparently small 

 mouth of this bird when closed, undergoes a marvellous change 

 when opened, the head seems to disappear and become all mouth; 

 when one is shot and its mouth examined it will be found, in 

 breeding time, to contain a ball of small insects which it has 

 collected in the air for its young. The quantity of insects 

 destroyed by it daily must be immense. My earliest date of its 

 appearance is the 6th of May and latest departure the 20th of 

 August. 



PICID^. 



Geeen Woodpecker {Picus viridis) — 



In 1861 I found a nest in Haw Park, and since that date I have 

 seen it at Nostell, Hickleton, Bretton Park, and Woolley Park. 



(To he continued.) 



COAL-PLANTS.* 



By Mr. Jno. Butterworth. 



(ABSTRACT.) 



Mr. Butterworth said : The vegetable origin of coal is now 

 generally admitted, but whilst some contend for the idea that the 

 vegetation forming the different coal seams grew on the spot, in the 

 form of very extensive marine swamps, others contend that this vast 

 amount of vegetable matter was brought down large rivers from 

 higher latitudes, and deposited in large estuaries. The latest theory 

 is that propounded by Professor Huxley, which sets forth that coal is- 

 very largely formed by the accumulation of vast quantities of spores, 

 the product of extensive tracts of lycopodiaceous plants. In proof of 

 this theory he instances a seam worked about Bradford, and one in 

 Leicestershire, which contain large quantities of flattened rounded 

 bodies, which he calls the spore bags or sporangia of the plant just 

 named. They bear no resemblance, however, to the sporangia of 

 Lepidostrohvs, which is regarded by every student of fossil botany 

 as the fruit of a gigantic lycopodiaceous plant known as the Lepido- 

 dendron. The chief evidence in favour of the second theory is the 

 larger quantity of earthy matter found in these seams in comparison 



* Eead at Ovonden Naturalists' Society. 



