Reports of Societies. 



V25 



published in England yet. The link in question completes the series 

 between Hipparion and Eqiius caballus. Mr. Zilliken says that his 

 friend Dr. Mayor, after despairing of finding any other part of the 

 skeletons of the horses, succeeded at last in discovering several bones of 

 the tarsus and carpus of these fossil animals, as well as various jaws. 

 Close investigation of the carpus and tarsus showed them to be inter- 

 mediate between the Equus cahallus and the Hipparion. But further, it 

 appeared that on comparing the bones of Hipparion, E. stenonis, and E. 

 caballus, some parts of stenonis showed little or no difierence from 

 Hipparion, whilst others, as for example the lateral metacarpus and 

 metatarsus of E. stenonis, were similar to those of E. caballus. This 

 would be the paleontolgical succession of the fossil horses as shown by 

 Dr. Mayor : Palesterii, eocene ; Anchitherium, middle miocene ; Hippa- 

 rion, superior miocene ; Equus stenonis, pliocene ; Equus intermedius, 

 pliocene (as named by Dr. Mayor) ; Equus caballus, quartenary. 



Ordinary Meeting, Feb. 10th, the president in the chair. — Mr. Firth 

 showed some splendid specimens of Rhododendron in full bloom. Mr. J. 

 Tindall showed the following specimens in geology, obtained from the 

 neighbourhood of Hepworth Ironworks and .the Ainley bed of coal : — 

 Orthoceras, Aviculo-pecten papyraceus, Goniatites, and Fosidonia. Mr. 

 J. Whitwam exhibited a specimen of Haynia paynaria caught by him in 

 Farnley Woods. Mr. J. French read a very interesting and instructive 

 paper entitled '^A Biological Sketch." He began by explaining that 

 biology included both botany and zoology — in fact the science of living 

 beings, of animals and of plants. After slightly dwelling upon the 

 various opinions and theories of several authors as to what is life, the 

 lecturer said that the various opinions expressed nothing, and that no 

 rigid definition can be given, but we may say that life is a collective 

 term for the tendency exhibited by certain forms of matter under 

 certain conditions to pass through a series of changes in a more or less 

 definite and determinable order or sequence. He also gave an exhaustive 

 description of protoplasm, in which he stated that protoplasm was the 

 basis of all life, and after giving the chemical combination of j)rotoplasm 

 in animals and plants, the lecturer most minutely described three of 

 the lowest and simplest forms in which life manifests itself, viz., — Torula, 

 Protococcus, and Amoeba. The mud-looking refuse of the ToruJa, or 

 yeast plant, was neither more nor less than a mass of minute living 

 plants. Protococcus, an elementary form of plant life, consists of only 

 one cell, green or red ; they may easily be seen by collecting some of the 

 green scum that is so often observed on damp walls, &c , which, when 

 mixed with water and placed under a microscope, will be found to consist 

 of a multitude of rounded cells. The phenomenon called " red snow " is 

 due to the presence of multitudes of this plant. The next simple 

 organism of which the lecturer spoke was the Amoeba, the humblest 

 representative of the animal kingdom. 



