lxiv PROCEEDINGS—PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 
night show that Perthshire as a field for investigation is not yet ex¬ 
hausted, nor will probably be so for a long time to come. In our 
rambles of exploration we, however, need not hope nor fear to meet 
with anything so curious as the organism described in the following 
“clipping” (from a paper .called the “Christian Herald”), which de¬ 
serves preservation as a gem of “popular botany” :— 
A Tree of Death has been Discovered in Mexico by a botanist who found 
it growing on an inaccessible rock on the Sierra Madre Mountains. As examined 
through a field-glass its trunk appeared thick and scaly, and about twenty feet high. 
A few feet from the ground branches resembling those of the weeping-willow shot 
out, but the long, drooping, whip-like limbs had the power of erecting and coiling 
themselves with a motion like sentient life. The botanist’s curiosity was intensely 
excited, and after a day’s search he discovered a passage through the rocks, through 
which he crawled and came out near the tree. As he looked at it a bird alighted 
upon it. The branches instantly twisted like snakes around the bird, and drew it 
down until he lost sight of it. In a short time the flattened carcase—only feathers 
and bones—dropped to the ground. He saw other birds alight, and in each case 
the branches held them until they were crushed and drained of blood. At last he 
ventured to touch a branch with his finger. It was seized instantly and held so 
tightly that, in withdrawing the finger, it was stripped of skin. Looking closely at 
the branches, he found that they were covered with small suckers like those of the 
devil-fish, some of which were stained with the blood of the birds. Professor 
Wordenhaupt, of Heidelberg University, to whom the botanist sent a description 
of the tree, says it is the Arbor Diaboli , or devil-tree, of which only two other 
specimens are known—one on the peak of the Himalayas, and the other on the 
island of Sumatra. 
12th December, 1889. 
F. Buchanan White, M.D., F.L.S., F.E.S., President, 
in the Chair. 
The following donation was intimated :— 
Museum Extension Fund. — £2 —from Mr. Everett Gray, London. 
Mr. John M‘Murray, Mr. Robert Dunsmore, Mr. Ferguson, and 
Mr. J. Masterson were elected Ordinary Members. 
Mr. R. Brown, F.E., R.N., Delegate of the Society to the British 
Association, gave a report of the Meetings of the Association at 
Newcastle. 
The following papers were read :— 
1. “ Remarks on the Black-throated Thrush and its occurrence 
in Scotland.” By Colonel H. M. Drummond Hay, C.M.Z.S. (See 
Trans., Vol. I., p. 135.) 
“ Colour.” By R. Clough. 
2. 
