nature. However, there are some which have been made out. They are parts of mastodon, deinotherium, hippopotamus, hippotherium, antelope, zeptorynchus, and a broad-snouted crocodile. Climbing over the sand-hills on the western side we reached the lighthouse, and from the high ground on which it stands we had a very excellent view of the whole island and the opposite coast. The sun was sinking gradually into the west, and the distant hills of Kattiawar were beginning to wear the rich purple tints of evening. Everything around was inexpressibly calm and serene-not a sound was to be heard. We now returned to our boat, which we found well loaded with our collection, and, turning her head to the north, we loosened and drifted away. Perim grew dim and grey in the horizon, and at last we saw it no more. The sun was gone, and the stars came out, and it was late when we arrived at Gogo. I should have been glad had we been able to make another excursion to the interesting little island, but so pressed were we for time, that it was impossible. The next day but one we crossed the gulf to Tankaria Bunder, the port of Jumbooseer; and in little more than a week we were again at Bombay, from whence we set out on our long journey at first. This paper was illustrated by drawings made by the author, numerous fossils obtained in the locality, and gigantic casts of organic remains lent for the purpose by the Committee of the Derby Museum. These casts had been presented to the town by the East India Company, and the Society recorded its thanks to the Corporation for lending them on this occasion. TWELFTH ORDINARY MEETING. ROYAL INSTITUTION, 19th April, 1858. DR. INMAN, PRESIDENT, in the Chair. The resignation of Mr. J. P. G. SMITH was received. JAMES YATES, Esq., F.R.S., informed the Society of the progress of the movement for introducing a decimal international system of weights and measures, and stated that the National Association had unanimously resolved to advise the adoption of the metre as the unit of length, but they had not yet decided on the unit of capacity and weight. The Rev. H. H. HIGGINS exhibited a brooch made from the Polyporus saligna by an inmate of the Lunatic Asylum at York. It was much admired. Mr. DUCKWORTH exhibited a fine specimen of the Echinus mammillatus dredged in the Red Sea. Mr. MARRAT exhibited a number of lichens from South America, which illustrated the general diffusion of that class of plants, few of them differing from European species. Mr. HIGGINSON drew attention to the phenomenon of complementary colours as found in printed matter, where black was used on green. Dr. THOMSON had noticed the same some years ago. Dr. IHNE suggested an emendation in a passage of Julius Cæsar. It was that in which Cassius said to Brutus, when trying to persuade him to pronounce for liberty— Were I a common laugher, or did use That I do fawn on men, and hug them hard, worse. And after scandal them; or if you know To all the rout, then hold me dangerous. Act 1, Scene II. The difficulty occurred in the first line of the passage He had never seen any satisfactory explanation of wha Cassius meant by the term " a common laugher." Som early copies had "common laughter," which was stil It struck him that they ought to be bold enoug] to correct the text here, and he would submit a word which would at least be consistent with common sense as a substitute for the existing one, which certainly con veyed no sense at all. The word he would suggest wa "lover." It was used in Shakspeare's time for friend. I occurred in the same play, as when Brutus addressed the people as "Romans, countrymen, and lovers." In the Psalms it was used in the same sense-" Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness." "My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore." But it appeared, he thought, probable, that soon after Shakspeare's time, if not in his time, it was rather antiquated, and had quite lost its signification as friend, and hence the printer might have been misled, and substituted "laughter" for "lover." Mr. YATES exhibited a portion of a Greek M.S. written by a community of Greek Monks in the Thebaid, in Egypt, giving an account of the Solar Eclipse of 1715. The following papers were read at this meeting :"ON THE BRITISH HYMENOMYCETES." By the Rev. H. H. HIGGINS, M.A.-See Appendix, page 1. "ON THE LOCAL FUNGI-Part I. HYMENOMYCETES." By the Rev. H. H. HIGGINS, M.A.-See Appendix, page 55. Also, by the same gentleman, ON THE DEATH OF THE COMMON HIVE BEE, SUPPOSED TO BE OCCASIONED BY A PARASITIC FUNGUS. BY THE REV. H. H. HIGGINS, M.A. On the 12th of March last, Timpron Martin, Esq., of Liverpool, communicated to me some circumstances respecting the death of a hive of bees in his possession, which induced me to request from him a full statement of particulars. Mr. Martin gave me the following "In October last I had three hives of bees, which I received into my house. Each door-way was closed, and the hive placed upon a piece of calico; the corners were brought over the top, leaving a loop by which the hive was suspended from the ceiling. The hives were taken down about the 14th of March, and two were healthy, but all the bees in the third were dead. There was a gallon of bees. The two hives containing live bees were much smaller, but in each there were dead ones. Under whatever circumstances you preserve bees through the winter, dead ones are found at the bottom in the spring. The room, an attic, was dry, and I had preserved the same hives in the same way during the winter of 1856. In what I may call the dead hive there was abundance of honey when it was opened, and it is clear that its inmates did not die from want. It is not a frequent occurrence for bees so to die, but I have known another instance. In that case the hive was left out in the ordinary way, and possibly cold was the cause of death. I think it probable that my bees died about a month before the 14th of March, merely from the circumstance that some one remarked about that time that there was no noise in the hive. They might have died earlier, but there were certainly live bees in the hive in January. I understand there was an appearance of mould on some of the comb. There was an ample ventilation I think, indeed as the bees were suspended they had more air than through the summer when placed on a stand." When the occurrence was first made known to me, I suggested that the bees might probably have died from the growth of a fungus, and requested some of the dead bees might be sent for examination. They were transmitted to me in a very dry state, and a careful inspection with a lens afforded no indication of vegetable growth. I then broke up a specimen, and examined the portions under a compound microscope, using a Nachet, No. 4. The head and thorax were clean, but on a portion of the sternum were innumerable very minute, linear, slightly curved, bodies, shewing the well-known oscilating or swarming motion. Notwithstanding the agreement of these minute bodies with the characters of the genus Bacterium of the Vibrionia, I regarded them as spermatia, having frequently seen others indistinguishable from them, under circumstances inconsistent with the presence of confervæ, as in the interior of the immature peridia and sporangia of fungals. In the specimen first examined were no other indications of the growth of any parasite, but from the interior of the abdomen of a second bee I obtained an abundance of well-defined globular bodies, resembling the spores of a fungus, 00012 to 00016 inch in diameter. Three out of four specimens subsequently examined contained within the abdomen similar spores. No traces of mycelium were visible; the plants had come to maturity, fruited, and withered away, leaving only the spores. The chief question then remaining to be solved was as to the time when the spores were developed, whether before or after the death of the bees. In order, if possible, to determine this, I placed four of the dead bees in |