Minutes of Proceedings. 
vii 
Anniversary Meeting of the Society, resumed 
May 18, 1910. 
The President, S. S. Hough, Esq., F.R.S., in the Chair. 
The Statement of Accounts was presented. 
The Meeting resolved itself into an Ordinary Meeting. 
Elections : — 
H. B. Smith, L. Currle, D. Dru-Drury, I. M. Guest, J. A. Hafpe, 
Dr. E. E. Mossop, Delancey Dodd, Dr. R. Poch, Dr. F. W. Weber, 
W. H. LoGEMAN, A. E. Snape, Dr. W. Johnston. 
Communications : — 
Some Further Observations on the Biology of Boridiola," by Dr. R. 
Marloth. 
Boridula dentata, commonly called the fly-bush, is a shrub one to 
four feet high, growing on the mountains near Tulbagh and on the Cedar 
Mountains. As the leaves are provided with many stalked glands, which 
secrete a very viscid fluid, numerous insects adhere to the leaves and 
perish there, hence the shrublet is universally considered to be an insecti- 
vorous plant. Experiments, however, have shown that the fluid secreted 
by the glands does not possess any digestive properties and that it is quite 
different from the fluid secreted by droseraceous plants. 
The fluid is a kind of balsam, and probably affords protection to the 
plant against the attacks of creeping animals, such as snails, caterpillars, 
ear- wigs, &c., and the capturing of other insects is merely accidental and 
of no advantage to the plant. 
Boridula dentata and B. Gorgonias, the only two species of this genus, 
are consequently to be excluded from the list of insectivorous plants. 
The Absorption-spectrum of Oxygen and a New Law of Spectra," 
by Dr. J. Moir. The AB and a lines of the Solar-spectrum which are 
due to absorption by terrestrial oxygen have each a complicated rhythmic 
structure. The author has discovered an algebraical formula whereby 
each line can be calculated from a fundamental, the differences being 
directly proportional to the squares of the first 15 or 16 integers. The 
agreement is practically in all cases within the observational error. The 
oxygen molecule is shown to be very slightly unsymmetrical. 
" Notes on some Bushmen," by Dr. L. Peringuey. Owing to the 
lateness of the hour only a summary of the paper was given. The small, 
elf-like Bushman was legendary with all the concomitants of the legend. 
If careful comparison of the description of the old authors, such as 
Sparrman, Barrow, and Burchell, with the remnants of that so-called 
