Proceedings. 489 
By Mrs. Belstead, through Mr. H. Hull, two well-preserved sking of the 
handsome ‘'fropic bird” of the South Sea and Indian Ocean (Phaeton 
phenicurus, Guer.), procured at Norfolk Island, which is one of its 
breeding places. ' 
By Mr. Marcus Aitkin, a stuffed specimen of the spur-winged plover of 
Tasmania (“Wattled Pewit,” Lobivanellus lobatus, Gouxp), shot neay 
Fingal. In the Museum there are also specimens shot near Oatlands by 
Mr. F. G. Anstey. 
By Mr. Curzon Allport, two pieces of jet-like lignite broken from a, fos- 
silized tree imbedded in the bank of the River Derwent, near Cawthorn’s, 
at Macquarie Plains—the principal portion of the trunk of the tiee having 
been mineralized with silex. 
Mr. Milligan stated that in the tertiary and post-tertiary strata forming 
the cliffs along the eastern side of the extensive estuary at Macquarie 
Harbour masses of fossilized wood are very frequent; that they are occa- 
sionally found partly converted into ferruginous sandstone, partly silicified, 
partly in the form of jet or dense lignite; that the woody tissue and resin- 
ous matter have in some instances been recognizable in the cavities of these 
mineral logs, and that they are almost always veined and dotted with white 
iron pyrites. 
Sir William Denison drow attention to specimens of lignite deposited in 
the Museum, obtained by himself on the margin and in the channel of the 
Ouse River, near the bridge beyond Hamilton. His Excellency also” 
reminded the meeting, that from Mr. Chilton’s farm, near Hamilton, he had 
brought pieces from the symmetrical trunk of a silicified tree horizontally 
imbedded in the sandstone overlaying the coal-beds there. 
Mr. Curzon Allport submitted to the meeting two samples of wheat— 
one having the aspect of ‘* White Lammas,” the. other furnished with an 
unusually long-bearded ear and yielding an clongated coarse grain. This 
yariety appears to have been reared as an experiment, but its history wag 
not given, and it was not identified by any of the members present. Mr, 
C. Allport also produced a specimen of vesicular scoria or cinder, a product 
of the incineration of the wheat straw. : 
By the Rey. H. Millar, a good hand-specimen of compact white quartz 
richly interspersed with gold, from California; also a specimen of argilla- 
ceous rock replete with fenestelle, and other marine remaing characteristic 
of the paleozoic series with which the sections upon the Brown’s River 
road near Cartwright’s have made every one familiar, and which appears to 
be closely associated with the limestone flanking Mount Wellington and 
“ The Dromedary,” the ranges near Marlborough and the western moun- 
tains, and which again shows out at Fingal, on the Eastern Marshes, near 
Stanfield’s, and again on Prosser’s River, on Maria Island, and at East Bay 
Neck and Eagle Hawk Neck, &c. My, Millar’s specimen was obtained 
near the Huon River, upon the estate of Mr. Kellaway. 
Mr. Milligan contributed a mat of figured Tapa Cloth, remarkable for the 
distinctness of the colours employed and for the neatness and fidelity of tho 
pattern, 
3B 
