HARD WICK& S SCIENCE- G OSSIP. 



229 



have divided the two genera. The White Helleborines 

 are termed Epipactus in Sowerby's " Eng. Bot." 



The two specimens here figured came to me from 

 Aigle, Canton Vaud. In the same box I had a 

 delightful variety of orchids, the most notable of 

 which was Ophrys arachnitis, far commoner in those 

 parts than our more familiar Bee orchis. The two 



Fig. 131. — Cefihalanthera ensijolia. 



latter, examined together, can hardly be confused, 

 although, if I am not mistaken, Bentham implies 

 they are synonymous names for one plant. Have 

 any of your correspondents found 0. arachnitis in 

 England? I should like to know if we possess it. 



C. P. 



MICROSCOPY IN CALCUTTA. 



THE [Microscopical Society of Calcutta held an 

 interesting meeting at the India Museum, in 

 that city,[on the 1st of August last. Dr. W.J. Simp- 

 son, the president, delivered an address, in which he 

 directed the attention of members to the work 

 to be done by such a society in Bengal. 

 He concluded with a description of the micro- 

 organisms found in Calcutta butter. It appears 

 that in Bengal, milk is not, as a rule, suf- 

 ficiently rich to admit of butter being churned 

 from it in its normal state. Milk out there is 

 well boiled. When it is cooling down a small 

 piece of butter, or a teaspoonful of buttermilk, 

 is added to it, and it is then put aside to 

 " set," which it does in from six to twelve 

 hours, forming a white acid mass, called Tyre, 

 which has been said to resemble koumiss. 

 This mass is mixed with water, and churned 

 till the butter separates, when it is collected 

 for use. Dr. Simpson, and Messrs. Simmons 

 and Meade, members of the society, have 

 devoted some time and attention to the micro- 

 scopical examination of Bengal butter, with 

 the result that they find it always teems with 

 well-developed bacilli, dumb-bell micrococci, 

 and forms of Oidium lactis and Penicillium. 

 They have occasionally met with even diatoms 

 and Infusoria ! In the discussion which fol- 

 lowed, Mr. Meade described the method he 

 adopts for the examination of butter ; and he 

 attributed the schizomycetes and micro-fungi, 

 referred to by the president, to the use in the 

 manufacture of butter of unfiltered water from 

 foul tanks, in which, as is well known, bacilli 

 swarm. Mr. Simmons, the honorary secretary 

 of the society, while agreeing with the pre- 

 sident and Mr. Meade in regarding Infusoria 

 and Diatomacece as proofs of the use of tank 

 water, said it was his opinion that butter made 

 by the Bengal process would always have 

 bacilli in it, whether tank water was used or 

 not. He had always found them in the 

 coagulated milk employed in the process, even 

 when he had himself made it most carefully, 

 and was certain that it was not adulterated 

 with any water ; and he considered that as 

 the butter, or buttermilk, which is added to 

 the boiled milk to expedite its "setting," 

 always contains bacilli, it really acts as a 

 "ferment." In butter made from good tyre, 

 with the addition of perfectly pure municipal water, 

 but by the process in vogue in Bengal, he had 

 found the same organisms ; and his opinion re- 

 ceived further confirmation from the circumstance 

 that he had examined samples of butter made in 

 Calcutta, not by the Indian process, but direct from 



