PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



May 2d. 

 Director S. W. Mitchell, -M.D., in the Chair. 

 Thirteen members present. 



May 16///. 

 Director S. W. Mitchell, M.D., in the Chair. 

 Eighteen members present. 



Dr. J. Gibbons Hunt exhibited a species of the frondose Hepatjcse, the 

 Grimaldia barbifrons. Its sporangia are borne on the ends of pedicels, and they 

 contain spores and elaters of great beauty. The stomata in the heads of a 

 plant open into chimney-like canals built up of cells, and these canals dip 

 down into the tissues of the plant. This family of cryptogams offers to the 

 microscopist many objects of beauty, as well as of physiological interest, when 

 properly studied. 



June Qtli. 



Director S. W. Mitchell, M.D., in the Chair. 



Sixteen members present. 



Prof. J. H. McQuillex, Corresponding Secretary, read a com- 

 munication from the American Microscopical Society of New York 

 City, requesting an interchange of specimens, and of published 

 transactions as far as possible. 



June 21st. 

 Director S. "W. Mitchell, M.D., in the Chair. 



Ten members present. 



A letter was read by the Secretary from Prof. Joseph Henry, of 

 the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, submitting a specimen of 

 the Myiarehus tinerascens with a remarkable fungous growth upon 

 its feet, and requesting the opinion of the Department as to the 

 nature of this abnormal formation, to investigate which Drs. Rich- 

 ardson, Allen, and "Wood were appointed a committee. 



In the subsequent session for private business, it was resolved, in 

 accordance with resolutions offered in the report of a Committee on 

 Modification of the By-Laws, R. S. Kenderdine, M.D., Chairman, 

 and adopted after discussion, somewhat amended : 



1st. That the second meeting in each month be purely conversational, with- 

 out order of business. 



2c?. That the Director appoint a committee of five, who shall canvass and 

 arrange the members, so as to bring to the Section at least three instruments 

 at each conversational meeting, in addition to those belonging to the Section, 

 with a few objects of interest for each microscope. They shall also canvass 

 the members, and endeavor to have some subject presented at eacli meeting, 

 in a short paper, relating to the construction or working of the instrument, or 

 its use in scientific stud v. 



