Journal of Proceedings. clxxv
kind exertions of members and others, gathered together on the tables in
the meeting room. Messrs. E. Webb and Sons, of Stourbridge, obligingly
lent a long series of original diagrammatical drawings, illustrating the
fungoid diseases of plants, from the pencil of Mr. Worthington Smith,
for the decoration of the walls. A set of microscopes were provided
by Mr. Oxley, Mr. Letchford, Mr. Christian, Mr. A. P. Wire, Mr. G.
Cocks, Mr. Livingston, Mr. Powell, Mr. Paulson, Prof. Boulger, A. V.
Jennings, Count Alexis Bobrinsky, and many others, under which
specimens of Diatoms, vegetable sections, microscopic fungi, and other
dissections of the same, were displayed.
Mr. Fitch exhibited an almost complete collection of the British
Grasses, made by William Curtis ; Mrs. Farquharson, a collection of
British Ferns; Mr. Paulson, a series of fruits of Umbellifera1,; Mr. A.
Vaughan Jennings, a large collection of Fresh-water Algae. A small
collection of Flowering Plants from Felstead were sent by Rev. E. Gepp,
and many specimens were exhibited by Mr. Wire. Mr. E. M. Holmes,
Mr. Oldham, Mr. S. Hall. Mr. W. Cole, Rev. W. L Wilson, and very many
other members. Mr. Fitch exhibited the new British Algae, Vaucheria
sphaerospora, discovered at Maldon on August 25th, by Dr. Otto Nord-
stedt [see Mr. Holmes' paper on this plant, in ' Essex Naturalist,' vol.
i., pp. 151-2]. Dr. Wharton exhibited a number of specimens in illustra-
tion of his paper on the uses of fungi.
After tea (to which over one hundred members sat down), an Ordi-
nary Meeting (the sixty-first) of the Club was held, Mr. T. V. Holmes,
President, in the chair. The following were elected members :—Messrs.
L. W. Bangs, J. C. Float, E. C. Stimson, Dr. Maurice Davis, and Cap-
tain Talbot.
Prof. Meldola, as the Club's delegate at the Aberdeen Meeting of the
British Association, reported that the Club was one of the thirty-nine
bodies selected for the list of " Corresponding Societies of th? British
Association undertaking local scientific investigations, and publishing
notices of the results."
He also brought before the meeting (on behalf of the Corresponding
Societies' Committee) the following resolution, which had been sub-
mitted to the Conference of Delegates by Prof. Hillhouse :—
" We view with regret and indignation the more or less complete
extirpation of many of our rarest or most interesting native plants.
Recognising that this is a subject in which local societies of naturalists
will take great interest, and can exercise especial influence, we urge
upon the Delegates of Corresponding Societies the importance of extend-
ing to plants a little of that protection which is already accorded by
legislature to animals and prehistoric monuments, and of steadily dis-
couraging, and, where possible, of preventing, any undue removal of such
plants from their natural habitats, and we trust that they will bring
these views under the notice of their respective societies."
The above was put as a substantive resolution to the meeting, and
was carried unanimously.