97 
Ordinary Meeting, February 23rd, 1875. 
R. Angus Smith, Pli.D,, F.R.S., Yice-President, in the Chair. 
Mr. Joseph Sidebotham, F.R.A.S., sent for exhibition a 
specimen of the Colorado Potatoe Beetle (Doryphora decom- 
lineata), which had appeared in great numbers in Canada 
last year, and had caused great destruction in the potatoe 
crops. 
E. W. Binney, F.R.S., V.P., exhibited to the society specie 
mens of a strong arenaceous shale, approaching to a flag- 
stone, containing numbers of macrospores of Lepidodendron. 
Several times previously he had brought before the Society 
similar specimens in coals, and showed that they formed a 
considerable portion of the Fifesh ire splint, but he had never 
previously found them in arenaceous shale or sandstone, 
although he had often looked for them. Many years since 
Professor John Morris, F.G.S., in Vol. V., part 3 (1840), of 
the Transactions of the Geological Society of London, in a 
catalogue of the fossils mentioned in Professor Prestwick’s 
Memoir of the Coalbrookedale Coal Field states that '' cap- 
sules neither bitumenized nor mineralized, but in a state of 
brown vegetable matter, are very abundant in some of 
the coarser sandstones of the coal measures.” He collected 
the specimens from a new pit at Woodbank, near Methel 
Hill, Fifeshire, where a winning was being made down 
to the Cameron Bridge Coal, and his attention was first 
directed to them by his friend Mr. J. W. Kirkby, of the 
Pirnie Colliery. Their great abundance in seams of coal 
was considered very remarkable, but when they are also 
found largely in arenaceous shales and sandstones asso- 
ciated with such coals it clearly shews that the plant of 
Peoceedings— Lit. & Phil. Soc.~ Vol. XIV.— No. 9.— Session 1874-75. 
