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MICROSCOPICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY SECTION. 
April 24th, 1871. 
Joseph Baxendell, F.R.A.S., President of the Section, 
in the chair. 
Mr. Charles Bailey exhibited some seedling sycamores 
having abnormal cotyledons. He said it was by no means 
rare to meet with occasional sports in the form and number 
of the cotyledons of the Sycamore, but most of the seedlings 
which had come up this season in his garden presented 
some aberration from the normal type. The most frequent 
deviation was that in which the extremity of one of 
the cotyledons bifurcated ; in a lesser number this division 
extended more than half way down the cotyledon ; while 
in some of the specimens exhibited the division was com- 
plete, so that the seedling possessed three distinct cotyledons 
of equal dimensions. A less frequent, although not un- 
common, form was one in which both cotyledons were bifid, 
the divisions occasionally extending more than half way 
down. Most of the seedlings seemed to be the production 
of one tree, and Mr. Bailey had not hitherto noticed any 
change in the plumule. 
“ On the Microscopical Examination of Dust blown into 
a Railway Carriage near Birmingham,” by Joseph Side- 
botham, F.R.A.S. 
On the 24th May, 1870, while travelling by rail between 
Saltley and Camp Hill, I spread a paper on a seat of the 
carriage near the open window, and collected the dust that 
fell upon it. A rough examination of this with the two- 
Pkoceedings — Lit. & Pun. Soc. — Yol. X.— No. 18. — Session 1870-71. 
