365 



Announcements of meetings, &c, for the ensuing month were then made, 

 the President remarking that it seemed to be again necessary to urge upon 

 members the duty of producing papers for their meetings, for he feared 

 that the greater number of them thought that morally and religiously they 

 had no other duty than that of showing their happy faces in the room. It 

 was not necessary that something new should have been discovered in 

 order to furnish a subject ; not everything new was always true or had 

 the most interest ; indeed he did not know but that in the whole round of 

 scientific enquiry they were not travelling too fast. There were many 

 members whom they would be very happy to see stand up and re-classify 

 known facts, so as to give an opportunity of judging whether their own 

 method of viewing a subject was a correct one. 



The proceedings terminated with the usual conversazione, and the 

 following objects were exhibited : — 

 Prawn, Hipolyte from Jersey ... 

 Empis pennipes 



of Corylns avellana~) 



» • * ••• ■•• y 



Female inflorescence 



(Hazel) ... 

 Vamceus nitens 

 Parasite of Codfish 

 Diatom n.s. 

 Tingis crassicornis 

 Ophrydium sessile 

 Minette from Jersey 

 Syenite, with micro-pegmatite from Charn- 



wood Forest ... 

 Volcanic dust Java eruption ... 



Florets of Edelweiss ... 



Sponge section, Grantia ciliata 



Mr. F. W. Andrew. 

 Mr. H. E. Freeman. 



Mr. G. E. Mainland. 



} 



Mr. A. D. Michael. 

 Mr. T. S. Morten. 

 Mr. E. M. Nelson. 

 Mr. F. A. Parsons. 

 Mr. C. Le Pelley. 

 Mr. G. Smith. 



3> 



J9 



Mr. A. W. Stokes. 

 Mr. J. Woollett. 



Attendance — Members, 62 ; Visitors, 3. 



Friday, February 8th, 1884. — Conversational Meeting. 



Mr. J. G. Waller gave a demonstration — the third of the second series — 

 the subject being " The sponge skeleton as a means of identifying genera 

 and species." After giving a general view of the sponge and its natural 

 division into three classes ; Keratosa, or horny sponges, Silicea, or sponges 

 making spicules of silex, Calcarea, or those making spicules of carbonate of 

 lime ; he proceeded to give an account of the genera of British sponges 

 according to Dr. Bowerbank's classification, saying, that as a sponge begins 

 its life by forming a membrane, so the lowest type would seem to be that 

 which exhibits little development beyond it. This is shown in the true 

 Halisarca (sea flesh), which is chiefly made up of sarcode and a small 

 amount of keratose matter ; a gelatinous substance scarcely having a skele- 

 ton properly so called. The advance upon this is what Dr. Bowerbank 

 erroneously thought was the true Halisarca of Dr. Johnston, and which, on 



