280 
REPORTS OF SOCIETIES. 
Dec., 1892. 
ensuing year, which was unanimously carried. Messrs. S. White and 
C. Cardwell were elected Vice-Presidents; Messrs. W. J. Parker and 
H. W. H. Darlaston, Secretaries. The other officers were re-elected. 
After votes of thanks to the retiring President and Officers 
had been suitably replied to, the President delivered the 
address. He said :—We Britons are a wandering people, whether 
we are the representatives of the lost tribes or not; we are 
accustomed to quit the scenes we are used to, and wander 
to pastures new. Priority of place is generally given to the 
seaside or mountains ; of these two resorts geologists and botanists 
prefer the latter, and so to the mountains I will ask you to go with 
me to-night, and consider what tale a mountain has to tell you. For 
the first 1,000ft. the vegetation would alter but little, but at 1,500ft. 
many of our well-kuown trees would have gone ; at 3,000ft. the two 
last trees of the plain would have disappeared. At 3,000 or 4,000ft. 
new beauties would meet our eyes—floral stars that are not found on 
the plains, a class of plants known as Alpine plants. Whence did 
these plants come ? If we go to the Alps, Sweden, or Scotland, we 
find the same plants ; not in one only, but in numerous cases, this is 
true. This tells us that our problem is not one of local mountains, 
but of mountains generally, and we look for some theory that will 
show how sometime or other mountain tops have been joined together. 
The climatic differences between places on the same lines of latitude 
were traced to their causes, the difference between western Europe 
and eastern America being dependent on the Gulf Stream. The 
botanist can produce no force that will account for Alpine plants. 
The geologist tells us that the present levels of the land were not 
always arranged the same. In Greenland, remnants have been found 
of a flora that could not thrive at the present time. There was a 
close connection between Alpine plants and Arctic plants, and if the 
ice can have changed its locale, it will explain the distribution of 
these plants. We must now appeal to astronomy. This will tell us 
that these things are not stable, and that at some future time, owing 
to the oscillations of the north and south poles, an ice-sheet will once 
more cover northern Europe, and the whole plains will be covered 
with Alpine plants. The mountain side furnishes a problem that 
geologists, botanists, and astronomers have tried to unravel—a history 
before which the history of mankind sinks into a small record.— 
November 14th. Mr. J. W. Neville showed a specimen of Haliotis 
splendens, and odontophore of the same; Mr. H. Hawkes, a large 
specimen of the false puff-ball, Scleroderma vulgar e, and some of its 
varieties, calling attention to its rapid mode of growth ; Mr. J. Collins, 
an adder from Wyre Forest; Mr. J. Linton, specimens of Helix 
aspersa from France ; Mr. Foster, a case of Australian insects, and a 
series of photographs of that country; Mr. W. J. Parker, death-watch 
beetles, Anobium sp. 
BIRMINGHAM ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. — November 
14th, Mr. R. C. Bradley in the chair. The Secretary called the 
attention of the society to the death of two of its members, Messrs. 
J. T. Harris, of Burton-on-Trent, and Robert Allday, of Handsworth. 
These were the first losses by death the society had experienced. The 
following were exhibited ;—By Mr. W. Harrison, living larvae of Tro- 
chilium apiforme, from Arley ; also one of the same preserved. By Mr. 
C. J. Wainwriglit, the genus Dioctria, including Reinhardt from Wyre 
Forest, rufipes , from Sherwood Forest and Sutton ; and Baumhaueri , 
from Sherwood Forest. By Mr. R. C. Bradley, series of Limnobia 
bifasciata and Amalopis littoralis , from Wyre Forest. 
