sa os: 5000 —————— 
SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL SOCIETIES. 
boring ceases; how sometimes the oil is driven quite away from the 
bore and lost; and in other instances driven away and yet can be recovered; and 
the probable cause of the stoppage of the gas flow in the Roma bores. ‘The most 
interesting point in the lecture was the demonstration of the certainty of the 
occurrence of petroleum in Queensland, though, unfortunately, so far. only the 
least valuable fractions—the solid and gaseous petroleums—have been found. It 
is, however, highly probable that where these occur the more valuable liquid 
fractions cannot be altogether absent. The necessity for all well-borers regularly 
reducing the pressure while boring, by pumping out the water in tlie bore 
casing, is also evident. Had this been done in the past, we would almost cer- 
tainly have had a flourishing petroleum industry in Queensland by this time. 
ROYAL SOCIETY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 
At the May meeting of the Royal Society of Western Australia, a paper on 
Western Australian Ants’ Nests was read by the secretary for Mr. J. Clark. 
This paper was the first of a series embodying the results of Mr. Clark’s 
researches on the species found as guests in ants’ nests in this State. Spiders, 
mites, wood lice, and a few flies occur, but by far the greater proportion of species 
found were beetles. An interesting nest is that of Jridomyrmea conifer, the 
twig Mound Ant, in whose nests many species were collected. The twig mounds 
are composed of grass and sticks, and are the ants’ winter quarters. In summer 
the ants, apparently aware of the danger of fires, which frequently burn their 
homes, forsake them, and excavate a nest. close by. The two nests are so dis- 
similar that they appear to be the work of distinct species, one a mound builder, 
and the other a miner. The next winter nest is built over the summer one, or 
sometimes over a small plant or an old root. ‘There are several entrances, at 
which some ants always appear to be mounting guard. Some ants also found 
in the eastern States, e.g., Heatomma metallicum, do not appear to harbor as 
many, guests in their homes as do their eastern relatives, but further investigation 
is needed to inyestigate this point. ved bai ree 
The Government Botanist (Mr. D. A. Herbert, M.Sc.) read a paper deseribh- 
ing a new species of Isopogon from Cranbrook, and also recording some new 
species of fungi. One of the most interesting of these was a Lysurus, a fungus 
with the rays of its fruiting body covered with a fetid slime, in which are 
embedded the spores. Blowflies and other flies of various kinds feed greedily on 
this, and the spores, passing through their alimentary canals undigested, are 
scattered far and wide. The food value of the slime is very slight, as flies and 
maggots fed on it die in a day or so of starvation. 
ROYAL SOCIETY OF TASMANIA. 
At the May meeting, a paper on “Nototherium mitchelli, a Marsupial 
Rhinoceros,” by H. H. Scott (Curator, Launceston Museum), and Clive E. Lord 
(Curator, Tasmanian Museum), was. read. d 
The discovery at Smithton, during the present year, of a: nearly complete 
skeleton of Nototheriwm mitchelli forms the occasion for a revision of many 
of our ideas respecting these remarkable marsupial animals, since the fragmentary 
remains hitherto available for study have failed to yield the sequence of evidence 
we now possess. ‘This is a note only—intended to place upon record the fact 
that Nototherium mitchelli was an extinct marsupial rhinoceros, and that-the four 
genera, Nototherium, Zygomaturus, Huouenia, and Sthenomerus, with their several 
species, are accordingly under revision, and will later on be dealt with in detail. 
The enormous mass of material to be passed in review forbids anything like 
speculation at present, but it is within the mark to observe that two groups of 
these animals have been instinctively felt (by all workers) to have existed, 
quite irrespective of sex questions—one a platyrhine and the other a latifrons type, 
and that it now appears that they were also a horned and a hornless group, 
and that Nototherium mitchelli belonged to the former, or cerathine group, and 
that some other species constituted the acerathine group, in which the weapons 
were reduced to very small things, or actually missing. . ; 
(375 
