836 
REPORTS OF SOCIETIES. 
rufus , Ly coper don saccatum, and Polyporus sulphur eus from Handsworth 
Wood ; Mr. Beale, a cluster of various corals from the Wenlock beds, 
Dudley ; Mr. J. Harrison, a specimen of Trigonia gihbosa from the 
great Oolite; Mr. C. F. Beale, Helix caftra, H. rivolii , and other 
tropical shells. Under the microscope Mr. H. Hawkes showed a 
vertical section of flower of mignonette. A paper was then read by 
Mr. II. Insley on “ The Probable Condition of the District at the Close 
of the Coal Period.” The writer described the various rocks accom¬ 
panying the coal seams, and spoke of the conditions they indicated, 
tracing the rise and decay of forest conditions from the bottom coal 
through the “thin,” “ herring,” and “ brooch,” to an attenuated 4Jin. 
seam which indicated a final vegetable struggle, resulting from a slight 
recurrence of past conditions. The overlying beds of fireclays, shales, 
sandstones, and marls were described, their fossils showing them to 
be strictly coal-measures, dwindling and dying out in a shaly bed 
209yds. below the surface at Hamstead. The rocks indicate that the 
coal period ended in a great lake aspect, around or near which coal 
plants struggled and ultimately died out. A n imber of sketches and 
fossils illustrated the paper.—November loth. Mr. A. T. Evans showed 
fossiliferous pebbles from the Drift containing Sigillaria, Stigmaria 
rootlets, &c. ; Mr. C. F. Beale, ancient cornelian arrow points from 
Arabia; also a shell celt from Barbadoes ; Mr. J. W. Neville, seedling 
plants of gorse, showing the transition from trifid leaves to thorns ; 
also plioto-micrographs of insects; Mr. Deakin, land shells from 
Bridport, including specimens of Helix virgata, var. minor , and a 
conical variety of the same. 
LEICESTER LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. 
—Section D, Zoology and Botany. Chairman, F. T. Mott, F.R.G.S. 
Monthly Meeting. Wednesday, November 17th. Attendance, 
fourteen (two ladies).—The chairman stated that Mr. Yize had sent 
him a specimen of Tremella albida , a fungus not previously recorded in 
the county. He also said that he had found at Beaumont Leys, a 
fortnight ago, a large group of the very handsome fungus Agaricus 
rachodes , which was formerly considered poisonous, but was now known 
to be edible. He had had several of them cooked and found them 
particularly excellent. Mr. Garnar exhibited specimens of the small 
crustacean Asellus aquaticus, common at the bottom of ponds, and in 
which the circulation of the internal fluid was very distinctly seen 
under the microscope. He read an account of this animal extracted 
from several works, but stated that the principal work upon the subject 
was in French, and was not procurable in Leicester. Mr. E. F. Cooper, 
F.L.S., exhibited dried specimens of several rare British plants, and 
stated that a white rat and a white-headed blackbird had been seen in 
the gardens of Mr. A. Paget, J.P. Dr. Finch exhibited a dried specimen 
of a remarkable variety of the common foxglove. Dr. Tomkins read a 
short paper on “ The Cultivated Bacillus of Anthrax.” He described 
the disease of anthrax, or woolsorters’ disease, or malignant pustule, 
or splenic fever, which appeared at Arnesby in this county some 
mouths ago in some cattle, probably caused by their drinking from a 
stream polluted by the washing of foreign skins. Several men caught 
it from the cattle and one died. Dr. Tomkins had obtained matter 
from the pustule, and found it swarming with the characteristic 
bacillus, mixed with a common micrococcus. He had cultivated the 
two together in nutritive gelatine, and found that in these conditions 
the micrococcus gradually overpowered and finally extirpated the 
bacillus. 
