85 
PROCEEDINGS OP SOCIETIES. 
of the country districts of Scotland. We understand that meetings of the 
Institution, during the Summer session, will be held as usual at different places 
in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh ; and that the excursions will be more 
frequent this year, in order that the materials may be collected as soon as possible 
for the work on the Natural History of Edinburgh in course of preparation by 
the Society. 
ROYAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF PARIS. 
Captain Rozet presented a note on a bone-cavern, in the department of the 
Saune-et-Loire. His object was to shew that the accumulation of bones in 
caverns was not always owing to the passage of currents of water for a long 
series of years, or to the residence of Carnivorous animals, but may be the result 
of both causes in succession. The cavern in question is situated at Vergisson, 
in the department of Saune-et-Loire, two leagues West of Masson. It opens on 
the face of a rock of Oolitic Limestone ; it contains at its entrance, and in the 
crevices of the sides, bones of Horses and Ruminants, firmly imbedded in a hard 
reddish Travertin. The bottom of the cavern is almost entirely covered by a 
layer of argillaceous earth, apparently fallen through the crevices of the roof. 
In this layer are disseminated bones more or less gnawed, preserving their 
gelatine, and, as everything goes to prove, more modern than those in the 
Travertin. The cavern is inhabited by Foxes, who have established their earths 
in the lateral fissures, after having dug out the Clay. At the entrance of these 
earths, and in the floor of the cavern, M. Rozet has found bones newly gnawed, 
and to which tendons and muscles still adhered, as well as a quantify of Foxes’ 
dung. The cavern of Vergisson, then, says M. Rozet, presents osseous deposits 
of two distinct periods—one in the red Travertin distributed at the entrance and 
sides of the cavern, as if deposited by an inundation, which did not reach higher 
than half the depth of the cavern; the other, much more modern, evidently 
brought by Carnivorous animals §ince the retreat of the waters. The order of 
succession appears to be inverted. This might be explained by the eruption of 
a modem current into a grotto, previously inhabited by ferocious animals, the 
presence of human bones sometimes found with those of antediluvian animals. 
M . Pouchet, of Rouen, some time ago presented several results of his researches, 
proving that the yolk of the egg of the bird is not a fluid, but composed of 
vesicles pressed one against the other, and altered in shape by contact. He now 
writes to say he thinks this law is applicable to the majority of Mammalia, 
having detected the same condition in the ova of Cats obtained from the ovary, 
only that the vesicles are infinitely smaller than in birds. 
M. Dutrochet writes that he has endeavoured to observe by means of a thermo- 
