PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 123 



brilliantly white on a dark ground. 2. An alloy of iron-phosphorufi 

 and carbon polished and " heat-tinted " : the carbide of iron was 

 coloured red, the phosphorus-iron eutectic purple. 3. Cemented 

 bar of steel, containing 1 ■ 25 p.c. carbon, etched with picric acid 

 in alcohol: the carbide appeared white on a brown ground. 

 4. Cemented bar, same as No. 3, polished and " heat-tinted " : the 

 carbide of iron appeared red on a light ground. 



Rev. Eustace Tozer :— The following objects, mounted in balsam, in 

 illustration of his paper: — Brachionus pala, with sporozoa ; Flos- 

 cularia ; Hydatina senta ; CEcistes stygis ; Pterodlna pala ; Euglena ; 

 ciliated embryo of Membranipora pilosa ; Polytoma uvella ; etc. 



Mr. C. F. Rousselet : — Notops brachionus, mounted in formalin. 



SPECIAL MEETING. 



The Chairman declared the Meeting to be now made "Special," 

 pursuant to notice given at the last Meeting on the requisition of 

 11 Fellows of the Society. 



Mr. D. J. Scourfield then moved the resolution of which notice had 

 been given — to the effect that the By-laws of the Society be altered as 

 might be found necessary to admit women to the Meetings of the Society,. 

 and to remove any other restriction of privileges due to the distinction 

 of sex. 



Mr. Scourfield said that, in moving the resolution, he realised that it 

 was a very important one for the Society, and one therefore to be 

 carefully considered from all points of view. He frankly admitted that 

 it would not be sufficient in such a case to be content with a mere 

 majority vote if that vote w T ere obtained in the face of strong opposition, 

 even though the opposition were based upon what appeared to those in 

 favour of the resolution to be misapprehension. In a Society such as 

 the Royal Microscopical Society, depending for its very existence upon 

 voluntary co-operation, he thought that to carry out a radical change 

 such as that now proposed, there should be something approaching 

 mutual consent, and this could only be obtained by putting the good of 

 the Society before every other consideration. Believing as he did that 

 the admission of women to the full privileges of Fellowship would be 

 for the benefit of the Society, he would deal with the matter simply 

 from that point of view by indicating some of the advantages which 

 might be anticipated to follow from the proposed alteration of the 

 by-laws. 



In the first place, he thought that the carrying out to its logical 

 conclusion of the policy introduced many years ago of allowing won 

 to become Fellows would redound to the credit of the Society, by 

 removing the reproach that women were not being treated fairly in^thi^ 

 matter. The Society posed before the world as one granting Fellowship 

 without distinction of sex, and yet said that lady Fellows must not come 

 to the meetings or vote, and the real trouble was that this had be 

 going on for a long time without any serious effort being made to see if 



