478 Botanical Society of Edinburgh. on the head and back ; whiskers greyish black ; nose and under sur-face white ; tail pale brown, lighter beneath ; ears very large, some-what pointed, and nearly destitute of hairs. inches. Length from the tip of the nose to the base of the tail 4^ of the tail H of the tarsus and toes H from the tip of the nose to the base of the ears 1-g-of the ears 1-r This beautiful species was brought from the interior of South Australia by Captain Sturt. It is one of the smallest members of the genus, and is remarkable for the delicacy of its colouring and for the large size of its tail in comparison with that of its body. BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBUEGH. April 14, 1853. — Prof. Balfour, President, in the Chair. The following papers were read : — 1. " On new species of Caulerpa" by R. K. Greville, LL.D. This paper will appear in the ' Annals of Natural History ' and the Society's 2. " Remarks on British Plants, Part III.," by C. C. Babington, M.A. (See p. 427.) 3. " Notes of a Tour in the Hartz Mountains in 1850, Part I.," by W. L. Lindsay, M.D. This communication consisted chiefly of an account of the Hartz forests, the circumstances which have tended to their destruction, and the measures now taken to preserve them. 4. "On the Characters of the Order Solanacece," by T. Anderson, F.B.S. The object of this paper was to place before the Society the new arrangement of these plants proposed by Mr. Miers (Annals, Ser. 2. iii. & ix.), and to draw additional reasons for adopting his view from the chemical properties of the plants. He stated that — " At least so far as our knowledge goes of the chemical history and action on the animal ceconomy of the Atropacece and SoJanacea, a notable correspondence between botanical characters and physiological properties may be observed ; or in other words, by this new arrange-ment, plants of analogous actions are more closely united, a result of no mean importance. As a proof of this statement the JtropacecB from its botanical characters comprehends the genera Atropa, Man-dragora, Datura, Hyoscyamiis, and Nicotiana, all of which are emi-nently poisonous, and with the exception of the last genus, and this rather doubtful, possessed of the power of dilating the pupil and rendering the iris insensible to the stimulus of light. Since the first introduction of the natural systems, this action on the pupil has been considered as a most characteristic mark of the Solanacece, along with well-defined narcotic properties, but the order was known to contain, besides some plants of very feeble narcotic properties, many others
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