Wellington Philosophical Society. Sixth Meeting (Annual Meeting) : 6th October, 1909. Mr. A. Hamilton, President, in the chair. New Members.—Mr. John Strauchon, Mr. T. A. Johnston, Mr. O. N. Campbell, Mr. H. E. Girdlestone, Mr. P. G. Morgan, and Mr. K. M. Graham Exhibits.—1. Mr. B. C. Aston exhibited specimens of the alkaloids of the pukatea. 2. The Chairman called the attention of the meeting to a pig's jaw which he exhibited, showing a remarkable variation in the tusks. The jaw had been found at Pipiruki. 3. The Chairman exhibited a medal which he had received as Director of the Dominion Museum from the University of Oviedo, Spain. The medal had been struck in commemoration of the third centenary of the University, and in the covering letter the opinion was expressed that the presentation might be “regarded as a happy emblem of the fraternal friendship existing between the ancient and classic seat of learning in Ovido and the justly celebrated Museum in New Zealand.” This extract, the Chairman remarked, showed how the work of the late Sir James Hector, the founder of the Museum, was regarded in distant lands. Papers.—1. “Preferential Voting and Vote-counting,” by G. Hogben, M.A. The author delivered an address on the subject of this paper, restricting himself to systems in which only one member is to be elected for each constituency, and lucidly explained several schemes that have been devised to make sure of the election of the right candidate. The right candidate was the one who could singly beat each of the others, or the one preferred by the majority of the electors to any other single candidate. The author, by a series of numerical illustrations, showed that the second ballot, so far as indicating the preference of the majority in a single electorate, had the same defects as the old system of allotting the seat to the candidate at the head of the poll, and he showed how the second-ballot system might in some cases return a candidate who represented a minority. Other systems were also shown to fail, and a description was then given of the author's extension of Nansen's system of voting, in which the counting of the votes was much simplfied. 2. “On Hongi's Armour,” by A. Hamilton. The author read some interesting correspondence settling the historic problem of Hongi's armour. The following papers were taken as read:— 3. “Notes on a Small Ethnological Collection from the Solomon Islands,” by A. Hamilton, from notes supplied by the Rev. W. G. Ivens. 4. “Notes on Lepidoptera collected in Otago and Southland in the Season. –9,” by A. Hamilton and F.S. Oliver. 5. “A Review of the Present Position of the Palæontology of New Zealand,” by A. Hamilton.