78 



The Naturalist. 



231st Meeting, October 31st, Mr. Henry Pocklington, F.R.M.S., 

 V.P., in the chair. — Mr. Charles H. Bothamley exhibited a fine piece of 

 fluor-spar from St. John's Cave, Weardale. Mr. W. E. Clarke exhibited 

 a large and interesting series of eggs of sea-birds collected by him this 

 season on various parts of the coast, including the eider duck, puffin, 

 razorbill, guillemot, cormorant, black-headed gull, kittiwake, and lesser 

 black-backed gull. Mr. John W. Taylor brought a number of shells, 

 including specimens of Helix alholabris , H. multilineata, aud H. profunda, 

 from Iowa, U.S.A., showing very beautiful variations from the normal 

 form. Mr. Arthur A. Pearson exhibited a number of microscopes, lamps, 

 cabinets, and numerous accessories, with a view of bringing under the 

 notice of the members well-made instruments at unusually low prices, 

 two of the instruments being after the design of Mr. Washington Teasdale, 

 of Leeds. 



232nd Meeting, November 7th, 1876. — Mr. John Grassham, V.P., 

 who was in the chair, showed larva of the second brood of Anthercea 

 pernyii, feeding on oak ; unusually large poplar leaves, 9in. by lOin. or 

 so ; and a copy of the " Leeds Mercury " of Dec. 1st, 1792, calling atten- 

 tion to a Mayor's proclamation as to the price of bread. Mr. William 

 Brook showed some galls, and a locust which had been taken this year in 

 a field near the Horticultural Gardens, Hyde Park, Leeds. Mr. Henry 

 Pollard showed a cray-fish from Meanwood, and a number of sea-urchins 

 from Whitby. Mr. C. H. Bothamley brought minerals, including 

 chalybite or siderite from Weardale ; clay ironstone, Cleveland ; haematite 

 and blende, Cumberland ; galena, massive, Weardale ; and galena, crys- 

 tallized, Cumberland. 



233rd Meeting, Tuesday, November 14th, 1876.— Mr, Samuel 

 Jefferson, F.C.S., president, in the chair. — Mr. S. Everard Woods read 

 a paper on The reasoning powers of Caterpillars." After pointing out 

 the beauty and variety of caterpillars, and the diversity of their forms 

 and habits, and enumerating the several instincts observable in the 

 caterpillar, the chrysalis, and the butterfly, he went on to show that 

 through these transformations the identity of the insect remains unchanged, 

 and that the instincts of the one must, in a latent form, be preserved in 

 the brain system of the other. Instinct and reason were described as 

 two difierent faculties (rather than lower and higher degrees of the same 

 faculty), both common to man and to all animated nature, but in widely 

 difierent proportions. Mr. Wood defined instinct as that intuitive 

 faculty which conveys the knowledge of how to act with the best results, 

 in a state of nature ;" and reason as " the power of connecting ideas, and 

 drawing an inference." Certain habits observable in caterpillars were 

 then detailed, tending to show the existence of their capacity for 

 deduction from premises, and consequently of their reasoning powers. 

 Notice was also drawn to the remarkable identity in colour between 



