45 
area of the field, preferring its dampest portions. Very few 
examples of the plant were visible on the occasion of my 
visit, as the field had been recently mown, but I managed 
to procure a few plants at the edges of the brook, and in the 
shade of some trees. These plants were for the most part 
prostrate owing to a flood just subsiding, and as they lay 
tangled in the rank vegetation of the watercourse, their 
winged stems afforded a more ready means of identification 
by touch than anything which presented itself above the 
level of the water or amidst the prostrate vegetation of the 
banks. Notwithstanding the lateness of my visit, most of 
the examples were found in flower, only a small proportion 
possessing immature fruit. 
So far as could be judged from the surroundings of the 
station as seen in a single flying visit, I should not hesitate 
to consider the plant as belonging to our indigenous vege- 
tation, and I am quite of the opinion of Dr. Lees, given 
before it was discovered the following year in Cambridge- 
shire, that it will “ be found to occur elsewhere in England, 
most likely in some other of the eastern counties.” (Report, 
Botanical Record Club, 1880, p. 128). There does not seem 
to be any ground for considering it an alien, as it is difficult 
to assign a reasonable explanation for its introduction. 
Further, the distribution of the plant in all countries 
washed by the same seas which touch our eastern and 
south-eastern coasts, is another and a very strong indication 
of its English nativity. 
Mr. J ohn Boyd exhibited a fine living specimen of Argu* 
lus foliaceus, a parasite of the Carp. 
Mr. R. D. Darbishike gave an account of dredging at 
Oban in September, in company with Dr. Marshall, Mr* 
Archer, and Mr. Walker, and exhibited and distributed 
specimens. Without reaching deeper water than 26 fathoms 
