Abstract
LONDON Linnean Society, November 17.—Sir J. Lubbock, Bart., in the chair.—Sir John Kirk, K.C.M.G., was elected a Councillor, and Mr. Frank Crisp Treasurer, in place of Mr. F. Currey, deceased.—Mr. George Murray exhibited (for Col. Turberville), a bough of Pinus pinaster, with suppressed internodes of the lateral branches, the result of injury to the axis from which they sprang.—De Francis Day showed examples of the stomach of the pilchard, with special reference to points in their digestion. Within the pyloric division of the stomach a membranous envelope incloses the food, the latter composed of the Zoëa stage of crustaceans. What peculiar function the sausage-shaped nerves serves in the economy of digestion is uncertain.—Mr. R. J. Lynch exhibited and read a short note on the contrivance for self-fertilisation in Roscoea purpurea, which to some extent resembles that of Salvia by modifications of anther and filament.—Sir John Lubbock, Bart., then read his ninth communication on the habits of ants, bees, and wasps. He detailed experiments proving that bees prefer blue flowers to those of other colours. But again if bees have so much to do with the origin of flowers, how is it there should be so comparatively few blue ones? Sir John suggests that all flowers were originally green, and then passed through white or yellow, and generally red, before becoming blue. Ants, he stated, may live seven or eight years.—Mr. C. B. Clarke described a Hampshire orchis not represented in English botany. This pale, flesh-coloured, or yellow orchis he demonstrates is the true O. incarnata, Linn., and not that figured by Syme and Babington, which is the O. latifolia, Linn.—Prof. Cobbold described a new entozoon from the ostrich, named by him Strongylus Douglasii. It is said to prove destructive to ostrich chicks at Grahamstown and elsewhere in South Africa. The worm somewhat resembles certain free uematodes, arid bears few eggs.
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Societies and Academies . Nature 25, 94–96 (1881). https://doi.org/10.1038/025094c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/025094c0