42 
by the warm moist air impinging upon the ice, and, being thereby cooled, deposit- 
ing in a visible form the water which it was no longer able to retain in a state of 
invisible solution, so to speak, I am unable to decide. 
Mr. C. F. Havis read the following note on the Stapleton Fern, and 
presented several fronds to the Botanical Section. 
Not being a member of the Botanical Section, or a botanist, I take the op- 
portunity of a general meeting of the Society to call attention to a very beautiful 
and at the same time somewhat rare, species of British fern, the Asplenium lan- 
ceolatum, or lanceolate Spleen wort. It grows, I believe, only in the southern and 
western parts of this island, but is tolerably plentiful in the localities where it is 
found. It grows in the clefts and crevices of rocks, and in this neighbourhood 
seems to prefer sandstone to limestone. The roots are mostly so deeply implanted 
in the cleft that it is dif&cult, and sometimes impossible, to obtain the plant with 
the root entire. 
About twenty years ago I was, like many young people, fond of collecting 
ferns, and 1 paid a visit or two for that purpose to the grounds of Oldbury Cor^t, 
in the Frome Glen, near Frenchay. The specimen on the table was procured 
there on one of these occasions. At that time the locality was, I fancy, known 
to comparatively few persons, and, as a consequence, the plants attained a finer 
growth than in all probability they would be found to exhibit now. I have 
gathered many specimens, but these are the largest I have myself obtained. 
The Council of the Society, who are engaged in making a catalogue of the 
natural objects of this neighbourhood, are of course aware of this locality of the 
Asplenium lanceolatum. Should there be any doubt of its being still, after the 
lapse of so*gjpany years, an inhabitant of the spot, I may say that I found speci- 
mens of it about two years ago in the grounds, though I was unable to visit the 
exact spot where I gathered these fronds, but the plants were poor stunted speci- 
mens, not more than about an inch long, and very sparely distributed. 
Mr. A. Leipner expressed the thanks of the Botanical Section for the 
present, and said that this plant was recognised in scientific works as a 
slight variety from the ordinary Cornish form. 
Mr. W. Rich, of London, exhibited a fine series of remarkably aberrant 
forms of the common whelk, Buccinum undatum, and of Fusus Antigua, 
closely resembling the ordinary forms of other genera and species, especially 
of Pleurotoma, Trochii, Scalaris, Dolium, and of the varieties Acuminata 
and Imperiali. Some curious forms of opercula of the same species were 
also shown, one of which, if found detached from its shell, would have 
been taken for a new species of Patella. Another resembled an Aplesia, 
and occasionally two opercula were found in one shell. Mr. Rich contended 
that all these different forms of the same shell originated ab ovo, and were 
not due to any subsequent cause. 
Canoc* Moseley, in concluding the proceedings of the evening. 
