122 
REPORTS OF SOCIETIES. 
May, 1889. 
has made the Foraminifera and the Diatoms his special subjects ; and, 
through the friends he has made in all parts of the country, he is 
enabled to have access to the various helps he needs in all the more 
important towns. But, out of London, he informs us, there is no 
town which offers to him such great advantages as Birmingham 
through its Natural History Society, and in the use of books, 
microscopes, &c. In Manchester, the Zoological Department of Owens 
College ; in Edinburgh, the Laboratory of the Botanical Gardens and 
the Chambers Street Industrial Museum ; in Glasgow, the Hunterian 
Museum and the Botanical Department of the University ; in Dublin, 
the Museum and the Library of Trinity College; and in a few other 
places similar smaller institutions, whose resources are placed at his 
disposal by the kindness of officials and friends, have all assisted him 
in his studies; but none of them can be compared, for convenience 
and help in actual work, with the Birmingham Society’s room. Mr. 
Burgess also says that he has found the Free Libraries in most large 
towns wonderfully useful. 
Btports of Societies. 
BIRMINGHAM NATURAL HISTORY AND MICROSCOPICAL 
SOCIETY.— Sociological Section, Feb. 18tli. Mr. W. R. Hughes, 
F.L.S., in the chair. Mr. Stone read the eighteenth chapter of 
Mr. Herbert Spencer’s “First Principles,” entitled “The Inter¬ 
pretation of Evolution.” A lengthy discussion followed on the subject 
of nitrogenous compounds, it being contended that they form an 
exception to the law that motion is dissipated during integration as 
they produce cold during combination, and contain so much motion 
when combined.—Feb. 26th. Mr. W. R. Hughes, F.L.S., in the 
chair. Mr. Hughes was re-elected president, and Mr. Herbert Stone 
secretary for the ensuing year. Mr. Grove exhibited for Miss Gingell, 
of Dursley, Ag. velutipes, Merulius Corium, Peziza coccinea. Mr. 
Bagnall exhibited for Miss Gingell, Eurhynchium crassinervium, 
Fissidens cristatus, and Galanthus nivalis from near Dursley. Mr. Stone 
exhibited Marsilea macropas , the Nardoo plant, a Hepatic from 
Queensland. Mr. Grove read his paper on “ Evolution in General,” 
dealing with the five chapters of Mr. Spencer’s “ First Principles,” 
XIII.—XVII., in which he expounded the law as it related to each 
phase of existence, the Inorganic, Organic, and Superorganic.— 
March 8th. Mr. Alfred Browett in the chair. The chairman called 
attention to the lecture recently delivered by Dr. Dallinger, at the 
Midland Institute, upon “ Researches into the Infinitesimal, with 
their Bearings on Evolution.” Also to a paragraph which appeared 
in the Pall Mall Gazette concerning the Section. Miss Goyne gave 
her exposition of the nineteenth chapter of Herbert Spencer’s “ First 
Principles,” entitled the “ Instability of the Homogeneous.”—March 
26th. Mr. W. B. Grove, M.A., in the chair. The president announced 
that Bennett and Murray’s Handbook of Cryptogamic Botany had 
been presented to the Society. A vote of thanks to the donor was carried. 
Mr. Stone read, for Mr. Hughes, a letter which recently appeared in the 
Pall Mall Gazette , from Sir Philip Magnus, in reference to the 
formation of a Spencer Society in London. Mr. Bagnall exhibited 
Fissidens bryoides from Coombe Woods, Coventry, with microscopical 
preparation. For Miss Gingell, Encalypta vulgaris , Polytrichum 
aloides var. minus, and Barbula aloides, with microscopical preparation 
of same ; all from Dursley, Gloucestershire. Mr. Stone exhibited, for 
