order. The points which he had desired to emphasize in his notice of this fungus were, in the first place, its faculty of attracting insects by means of its brilliant flower-like appearance, coupled with the pungent odour of its viscid secretion; and, secondly, its power of digesting and absorbing them into its own system after being caught. The “seaanemone” form of Aseroë, referred to by Sir James Hector as occurring at the Hutt, must be an entirely distinct species, and was deserving of attention, the only two New Zealand forms at present known to botanists being A. rubra and A. hookeri. As to Sir J. Hooker's undoubted share in the credit of the discovery as to the carnivorous properties of Drosera, he might mention that on the occasion of his first visit to Darwin, at his beautiful home in Kent (in the year 1873), he found Sir Joseph Hooker there, and they had been employed the whole of that Sunday forenoon making experiments upon these vegetable secretions, with the grand result that they had discovered or demonstrated that this solvent was the exact analogue of the gastric juice in animals, and that the insect food passed through practically the same process of digestion and assimilation. The results of this investigation, and of the subsequent series of experiments on living and growing plants by feeding them systematically on particles of raw flesh, are fully stated in Darwin's famous work on the subject. Mr. Cohen exhibited a specimen of the leaf-insect from Fiji. Sir J. Hector exhibited a minute insect taken from a Spanish chestnut tree which it had destroyed. Mr. Bright had sent it from Greytown. Mr. Hudson thought it was indigenous. He had observed it boring in native trees; he had not fully examined them yet.

Mr. Maskell showed specimens supposed to be blights, but which he said were quite harmless.

Sir James Hector exhibited a trout which had been caught in the Wanganui River, near the Heads, by Mr. S. H. Drew, which, after examination, he considered to be a cross between the Loch Leven trout and a brown trout, and which had thereby acquired the characteristics of the Galway trout. Sir James Hector expressed the opinion that it was a pity the acclimatisation societies had put different kinds of trout in the same rivers, because crossed forms were sure to be the result, and no good specimens of fish would be obtained. He further stated that he had caught a Loch Leven trout in the Hutt River, and a fish which he believed was a true specimen of the Californian salmon. Sir W. Buller presented the following pamphlets to the Society, which were laid on the table:— 1. “On the Sponge Remains in the Lower Tertiary Strata near Oamaru, Otago, New Zealand,” by G. Jennings Hinde, Ph.D., and W. Murton Holmes. (Illustrated.) 2. “On the Occurrence of Two Species of Cumacea in New Zealand,” by George M. Thomson, F.L.S. (with plates). 3. “Colenso's New Zealand Hepaticœ,” revised by F. Stephani (with plates).