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Megnin happening to turn out the drawer found the lost box, and on 

 opening it, found, to his astonishment, that the creatures were still alive, 

 and apparently nearly as active as usual. He then examined them care- 

 fully, and found that those which came from Miana were identical with 

 those which had been described by Fischer, those which were considered 

 harmless were of a different species, whilst those called " Strangers 

 beware " were a mixture of the two species. Megnin wrote a skilful 

 paper upon the subject, but he wanted very much to know if they were 

 really as dangerous as they had been made out to be, Dr. Tholozan having 

 come to the conclusion that their bites, under certain conditions, favoured 

 by the miasma of the place, would probably produce a state of affairs which 

 might prove to be serious, but were not in themselves dangerous. Megnin 

 himself took one of the creatures and placed it upon his arm, when it bit 

 at once and sucked blood until it was satisfied, and he found that the place 

 where it had bitten continued to irritate, more or less, for about a fortnight, 

 but no serious effect took place beyond. A short time ago he (the President) 

 received a letter from Miss Ormerod, saying that she had received from Mr. 

 Crawford, the State Entomologist of Adelaide, Australia, some specimens, 

 asking her to identify them. She did not know the species, but seeing that 

 one was an Argas threw them into boiling water and killed them at once, 

 and then forwarded them to him to see if he could name them. He examined 

 them as well as their condition permitted, and was entirely unable 

 to see any difference between these and the Persian Argas described by 

 Megnin. He thought, however, that he should like to see them alive if 

 possible, and so sent for some more, and in answer to his request Mr. 

 Crawford sent him some — only two — by post from South Australia. They 

 arrived whilst he was out of town, and so they were left for a month or six 

 weeks without attention, but subsequently he found that one of them was 

 still alive. He had mounted the other and had brought it to the meeting 

 that evening together with the living specimen, both of which were ex- 

 hibited under microscopes in the room. 



Mr. H. Epps said he should like to make a few remarks on the subject of 

 a new cement, but rather with the object of seeking information than of 

 being able to give it. Perhaps some of the members might have noticed the 

 letters which recently appeared in the "Times" on a new use for sugar, in 

 which the writer pointed out that it formed an ingredient in a very hard 

 cement, and claimed for the process great antiquity, stating that it was in 

 use amongst the Romans, and in India in early ages, and then proceeded to 

 give various suggestions for making a cement which should be harder than 

 anything of the kind previously known. It struck him on reading this 

 account that it might perhaps be a good cement for microscopical purposes, 

 and therefore thought he would try how it worked. The directions were to 

 mix together equal quantities of sugar and lime, and it was particularly 

 emphasized that cane sugar should be used for the purpose. He had tried to 

 follow the receipt as closely as possible, but was sorry to say that the results 

 had proved to be very disappointing. He first took some ordinary cane 

 sugar and endeavoured to mix it with lime and water, but he soon found 



