PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 230, 5 March 1875, Page 2

PHILOSOPHICAL INSTITUTE.

The first ordinary meeting of the institute for this year was held last Thursday at the Public Library. Present —Mr RrW, Fereday (vice-president, in the chair), Professor Bickerton, Drs Coward, Powell, and Turnbull.

The minutes of all meetings held since the last ordinary meeting were read and confirmed. A ballot for the election of new members was taken, when the following gentlemen were declared to be duly elected :—Sir Thomas Tancred, J. C. Wason, J. M. Brown, M.A., M. Studholme, J. Colborne Veel, M.A., Wm. Keece, and James Dawe.

Dr Powell read a communication from Mr Alex. Lean, stating that some men engaged in sinking a well at Riccarton, near the racecourse station, had at a depth of 14ft or 16ft, come upon a stump of a tree standing as it grew on a bed of shingle. The surface of the shingle bed was 18ft from the present surface. The truak of the tree measured 4ft in diameter. The earth thrown out was a sandy loam. He also enclosed a piece of the timber. The communication and enclosure were laid on the table, the thanks of the Institute recorded to Mr Lean.

Dr Powell exhibited some specimens of clover dodder, Cuscuta trifoli, a leafless parasite found growing on lucerne on the farm of Mr Coster, Harewood road. It sent minute rootlets into the stem of the lucerne, gradually drawing all the nutriment away until the lucerne was destroyed. It was very prolific, and could only be got rid of by paring the ground and burning. The specimens exhibited were ou trefoil and broadbean stems. A preparation was placed by Dr Powell under the microscope, showing a section penetrated by the root-like processes of the dodder. It would be matter for regret if this weed were allowed to spread through the province. He also desired to inform the Institute that he had received a letter the previous day from Mr T. Woodfield, postmaster at Oxford, addressed to him in the absence of Dr Haast, saying that Mr William Cooper, of Hebon Heath farm, Oxford, had called upon him the day before and wished him and Mr Paul, chairman of the Oxford Road Board, to accompany him to his farm, as he had come upon a track of footprints made by a very large bird. They went, and found the prints as described, and tracked them for about half a mile through the bush. The print of the foot s- emed to be that of a very large bird, the length of the toes being fully six inches. There were four toes, the two front ones being very strong, with a short stubby thick nail. The stride taken in walking measured 9ft, and he had measured the same distance in more than twenty different places. He proceeded to take casts of the footprints in wax, and succeeded in taking two very good casts. He had also, while tracking, found excrement dropped in several places, which he had preserved. Mr Kobt. Cooper had told him that he heard something wandering around his house on Sunday night, but thought it was his horses. It was his belief, from all he saw, that there was a very large bird at liberty in the Oxford Forest, andif he(Dr Powell)desiredithe would take him to the spot and show him 1 he footprints, &c. When he (Dr Powell) had closely read the communication he was exceedingly dubious, from the four toes *ud

length of the stride mentioned, that the footprints could be those of a bird, and came to the conclusion that they were made by a Wallaby, as he was aware that those animals jumped with their fore feet placed closely together. He was about to telegraph to that gentleman for further information when he turned up himself. Mr Woodfield showed him the casts, which had been very nicely and carefully taken in yellow wax. The moment he saw them he was convinced that his feurmise that the footprints were those of a Wallaby was correct. [Dr Powell here made a drawing of the casts on a slightly enlarged scale.] Mr Woodfield then accompanied him to the museum, and he there showed him the feet of a wallaby in their natural state, and also a skeleton of them, and he expressed himself satisfied that the footprints he had seen were made by such an animal. The droppings also shown him by Mr Woodfield were not those of a bird. One new member was nominated, and the meeting adjourned.