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PROCEEDINGS OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 
Mr. Carr has a fine specimen of P. Donglasii near the Cheviot Hills, but thinks 
it has the appearance of a tree out of climate, being covered with blebs.—Capt. 
Cook thought that the Larch was not a good species on which to graft P. 
Doaglasii; one nearer allied would be better.—Prof. Graham said, if timber was 
wanted, then it was best to graft on a closely-allied species ; but if fruit, then it 
was best to graft on the most distant. 
The Rev. F. W. Hope read a paper “ On the modern classification of insects.’" 
He stated in the first place, that modem entomologists had attended almost 
entirely to external organisation. In so far as internal organisation had been 
attended to, it was useless, for the intestinal canal had been thus exclusively 
made use of. He then referred to several anomalies of these organs amongst 
various classes of insects. After pointing out the want of uniformity of plan in 
the prevailing systems of classification, he directed attention to the question as to 
whether the nervous system might not be made the basis of a more natural 
arrangement of insects than had hitherto been adopted ?—Mr. Gray objected to 
the nervous system or any other internal organ being used as a means of classi¬ 
fication ; the external forms were much more easily discovered, and external 
conformation so often accompanied internal variations, that it was unnecessary 
to have recourse to minute dissections to discover the position of any object in 
classification.—Mr. Hope stated, that external fornhwas so fallacious a guide, that 
all naturalists were abandoning it. The nervous system was the fundamental point 
in the system of animals on which all other parts were dependent: it was the 
point on which all the great divisions of the animal kingdom were founded; it 
constituted the surest means of distinction, and every day added to our knowledge 
of its varied forms. In the class Insecta , great progress was making, and by the 
labours of such men as Muller, Ehrenberg, Grant, and Newport, the latter 
of whom he might call the Lyonnet of England, they were making rapid 
strides towards establishing a classification of insects on a knowledge of their 
nervous structure. 
Mr. G. B. Sowerby exhibited specimens of Lycopodium lepidophyllum , pointing 
out the facts, that, instead of having numerous stems disposed in a stellated 
form, as stated by Hooker, the whole plant consists of a single spiral-branched 
stem: and that the fructifying spikes, instead of being <c acute triquetris” are of 
a square form , with sharp edges. He also laid before the Section some specimens 
of Encrinus moniliformis , displaying various monstrosities of form in the number 
of plates of the pelvis, costals and scapulars, as well as in the arms, in which 
were manifest several variations from the normal form of the species, from five to 
six pelvic plates, costals, and scapulars, and from nine to thirteen arms. 
Mr. Strickland read a paper on Ardea alba. This bird, he stated, had been 
unjustly excluded from the lists of occasional visitors to this country. One 
