22 The h'lsh Naturalist. Januan% 



was dredged in Smelt Mill Bay, a small bay at the foot of Carnalea golf 

 liuks, on the 21st July. It spawned on the I7tli August, and died on the 

 29th vSeptember. The eggs did not come to maturity. A specimen of 

 the Plumose Anemone which he got measured 12 inches from base to 

 crown, 9 inches across the tentacles, and the diameter of the column was 

 5 inches. He had not been able to trace the record of so large a speci- 

 men having been taken before. 



DUBLIN MICROSCOPICAL CLUB. 



XOVKMBKR 11.— The Club met at Leinster House Dr. G. H. 

 I'KTHVBRIDGK (President) in the chair. 



A. R. NiCHOi^s exhibited statoblasts of the freshwater Polyzoa, Cn'sta- 

 tella mticedo and Pcctinatella magiiifica. These statoblasts have the form of 

 more or less circular discs, each surrounded with a ring of air cells. In 

 C. jtiucedo a row of anchor-shaped hooks springs from each side of the 

 statoblast and radiates outwards for some distance be5-ond the margin, but 

 in P. ))iagiiifxca there is only a single row of these hooks, springing directly 

 from the margin. /'. magnifua is confined to North America, except as 

 introduced at Hamburg, Germany. 6'. niucedo, in addition to having 

 been found in several localities in Ireland, including the Grand Canal 

 near Dublin, has also been recorded from other parts of the British 

 Islands, from the Continent of Europe, and froma few places in North 

 America. 



D. M'ArdIvH exhibited specimens and drawings of a minute fungus 

 Pcriconia byssoides, Pers., which he had detected on a shoot of Gooseberry 

 -sent from Co. Down. It formed small black patches on the shoot, the 

 septate fertile liyplue with erect stems, composed of threads, bearing 

 compact globose heads ; conidia subglobose, dark brown. Mr. Massee, 

 to whom specimens were sent, says that the spores of this species are 

 rough and usually somewhat larger than they are stated to be in books. 

 vSaccardo gives the distribution of the plant as follows ;— Sweden, 

 Britain, Belgium, Italy, N. America. 



F. \V. MooRK showed Pko)na g)ossula)Uc, a fungus which does not 

 seem to have been previously recorded from Ireland, although recently 

 it has been very prevalent on gooseberry bushes. It is not parasitic, and 

 grows on the decaying cortex of the branches. 



Dr. G. H. Pethvbridge exhibited a series of specimens of the slime- 

 fungus Spumaria alba, DC , together with photographs of the ri^x; 

 sporangial stage, with its white calcareous covering, taken in situ in the 

 habitat in which the organism was found, viz, among the saud-duues of 

 the North Bull. The microscojDic characters of the calcareous covering^ 

 the spores, and the capillitium were those of Spumaria alba, DC, but 

 instead of being opaque white, as is usually the case in this species, the 

 ])lasmodium was yellow. A note on this point will shortly be published 

 in the Irish Naturalist. 



