260 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 



AN ORDINARY MEETING 



OF THE Society was Held at 20 Hanover Square, W., on 

 Wednesday, February 21st, 1917, Mr. E. Heron-Allen, F.L.S.,. 

 F.Z.S., ETC., President, in the Chair. 



The Minutes of the preceding Meeting, having been circulated^ 

 were taken as read, approved, and signed by the President. 



Mr. Cyril P. Hill, Hon. Treasurer, in presenting the Financial 

 Statement and Report, duly audited by Messrs. Soar and Grundy,, 

 apologised to the Society for the fact that the accounts were not out in; 

 time for the January Meeting ; but certain outstanding accounts did 

 not come in till February. Fellows would note that heavy depreciation 

 of the Society's investments was brought about by the removal of the 

 " minimum prices." But it was not considered necessary to write them 

 down to the rock-bottom figure, as there was every probability of their 

 appreciating after the war. 



The statement was unanimously accepted. 



Mr. D. J. Scourfield, in drawing attention to the exhibit of British 

 and foreign species of Daphnia, said that although confined to specimens 

 of true Daphnias, it exemplified the considerable range of variation 

 found in a single genus. Numerous species of Daphnia had been 

 described in the past, but recently the tendency had been to put a 

 number of these forms together again, under a few of the older specific 

 names. Thus under Baplmia puJex several forms formerly regarded as 

 distinct species were now classed as varieties. A specimen of D. ohtusa 

 (included in the exhibit) was a case in point. Of D. longispina, which 

 seemed to include nearly all the forms seen in the lakes of this country, 

 and in European lakes generally, he was able to show one or two 

 examples, more especially one called D. galeata, which was very charac- 

 teristic of the Scottish lochs. The specimen D. cristata, although not 

 yet recorded in this country, might be expected to occur in the north of 

 Scotland, and was peculiar in having only four instead of five setae on the 

 three-jointed branch of the swimming antennae. Other forms shown 

 were D. magna, the largest native species, and D. atJcinsoni, probably a 

 southern form, only occurring rarely in this country, and possibly 

 derived from winter eggs introduced by migratory birds. D. lumholtzi^ 

 first described by Sars from specimens reared from dried mud 

 sent from Australia, afterwards found in Palestine, and later by 



