Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 2 (1878).djvu/481

Rh for study or reference, not the glorification of botanists ; and, secondly, that changing an established name is very different from giving a name to a new plant. * * * The rule that long-established custom amounts to prescription, and may justify the maintenance of names which form excep- tions to those laws which should be strictly adhered to in naming new plants, is unfortunately now frequently ignored, and the changes proposed iu universally admitted names are producing in many instances the greatest confusion."

Another paper of a physiological cast was that of the Rev. G. Henslow, "On the Absorption of Rain and Dew by the green parts of Plants." It appears that earlier experimenters were fully persuaded that leaves could and did absorb dew and rain. Duchartre, in 1857, reversed this view. Mr. Henslow now maintains, from his own experiments, that absorption does take place soon after the sun has risen, and under other predisposing circumstances ; thus the common notion of gardeners is right, and the late current teaching of science wrong.

"Notes on Cleistogamous Flowers, chiefly of Viola, Oxalis, and Impatiens," was the title of a paper read by Mr. Alfred W. Bennett.

Dr. Thomas Boycott exhibited a great blanket-like sheet of Chara (Nitella, sp. ?), got from a dried pond in St. Leonard's Forest, Sussex. To zoologists and microscopists the rare material entangled iu this vegetable mat would be of the highest interest.

Specimens of growing India-rubber trees from West Africa were shown by Mr. Thomas Christy ; and Dr. R.C.A. Prior brought forward a branch in blossom of Colletia cruciatica, grown out of doors in Somersetshire by the Rev. W. Sothebv.—

November 5, 1878. — Esq., Vice-President, in the chair.

The Secretary read a report on the additions that had been made to the Society's Menagerie during the months of June, July, August, September and October, 1878, and called attention to some of the more remarkable accessions which had been received during that period.

A communication received from Mr. J. H. Gurney contained a memo- randum from the late Mr. E. C. Buxton, stating that Asturinula monogrammica, observed on the Eastern Coast of Africa, had a song which was heard morning and evening.

An extract was read from a letter addressed to the Secretary by Dr. A.B. Meyer respecting a supposed new Bird of Paradise, obtained on the West Coast of New Guinea.