828 NATURAL HISTORY NOTES.-REPORTS OF SOCIETIES. 
ill |) is torn Holes. 
The British Moss Flora, Part IX.—We are pleased to see this part 
of Dr. Braithwaite’s great work. It will be greatly valued by British 
bryologists. It contains four plates, with illustrations of twenty-five 
species. In the text, descriptions are given of fourteen species of 
Tortula, Pleurochcete squarrosa, and fifteen species of the comprehensive 
genus Mollia. 
Mr. Clement L. Wragge has been commissioned by the Queensland 
Government to visit and report “as to the best means of establishing 
Meteorological Stations in Queensland, including Cape York Peninsula 
and Torres Straits.” Mr. Wragge, who lately returned from a scientific 
expedition on his own account to North Queensland, commenced this 
important work early last month, and expected to reach Normanton, 
in the Gulf of Carpentaria, about the 15tli October. 
New British Fungi.— Some time ago I mentioned the discovery 
of the first species of Mortierella recorded as growing in Britain ; it was 
allied to M. tuberosa, but I was unable to complete the identification 
owing to the paucity of the material. I afterwards found a second 
species, M. Candelabrum, in larger quantity, and have just now been 
gratified to find another species of this beautiful and curious genus, 
ill. polycephala, Coemans. This has occurred in great quantity on damp 
Sphagnum and other mosses. I have also lately met with Helmin- 
tliosporiuvi hormiscioides, and Fusidium lycotropum. —W. B. Grove, B.A. 
Ejected Pellet of a Borin. —On the 4tli of October a cock robin 
alighted upon the grass about three feet from my breakfast room 
window. He stood there quite still for a minute or two, facing me as 
I looked out. I noticed a convulsive movement in his throat, and 
presently he opened his beak wide, as if gaping, shook his head 
smartly, and there fell out of his mouth a worm about ljin. long, and 
a black substance rather smaller than a horse-bean. The robin picked 
up the worm again in his bill and flew away with it. I went out to 
examine the black object which he had left behind, and found it to be 
a pellet of hard fragments half-an-incli long and a quarter of an inch 
thick. On macerating this pellet in water it was found to consist of 
fragments of beetles and flies, the legs, broken elytra, wings, jaws, 
heads, &c. ; also the skin of a caterpillar three-quarters of an inch 
long, and small green particles of vegetable matter, some of which 
were inside the skin of the caterpillar and may have formed the food 
of that creature, and not of the robin. There were, however, frag¬ 
ments of grass a quarter of an inch long, not inside the caterpillar, 
but these may have been taken up accidentally with worms. 
F. T. Mott. 
♦ 
BIBMINGHAM NATUBAL HISTOBY AND MICBOSCOPICAL 
SOCIETY. — General Meeting, September 29th. Mr. T. Bolton 
exhibited some galls on the petals of the leaves of the poplar from 
Selly Oak, and Stemonitis fusca, one of the Myxomycetes ; and, on 
behalf of Mr. Cecil Davies, some pupa cases from South America. 
Mr. W. B. Grove, B.A., exhibited the following fungi :—Pestalozzia 
