100 Tlie Irish Naturaiist May, 



numerous long multicellular hairs, and in tlic cells are seen peculiar 

 clusters of red grains or plastids. The cell sap is also coloured red. 



Professor G. H. Carpenter showed specimens of a new species of the 

 Collembolan genus Cryptopygus from Ben More, Christchurch, New 

 Zealand. The presence of this western Antarctic genus of springtails, 

 hitherto known only from Graham Land and the South Orkney Islands, 

 in the South Island of New Zealand, is of very high geographical interest. 



N. CoLGAN exhibited for identification living larvae of a marine organism 

 hatched out from egg-clusters which he had taken in a half-tide pool at 

 Bullock Harbour, Dalkey, a fortnight earlier (January 31st). The larvae 

 were subsequently identified by the President as the trochosphere stage 

 of the marine worm Phyllodoce maculata which is generally distributed 

 on the Dublin coasts. The egg-clusters varied in size from 7 mm. to 

 10 mm. in diameter, and consisted of a roughly globular or elliptic mass 

 of clear jelly invested with a cobwebby membrane, the whole taking on a 

 clear green colour from the numerous minute green eggs enclosed. The 

 clusters, which were fairly numerous, were found attached to Cladophora 

 vupestris and other small sea-weeds, and the breeding season ( January - 

 February) as observed in this Dublin Bay station agrees with that observed 

 by Garstang at Plymouth, while it antedates by fully three months the 

 season given by MTntosh for Saint Andrew's in his " Monograph of the 

 British Annelids." The larvae shown were very active. They were roughly 

 elliptic with a well-marked central indentation where the girdle of long cilia 

 was placed. In some later stages the larvae became almost dumb-bell 

 shaped by the deepening of the central indentation, and very soon after 

 their emergence from the egg, which occurred within a week of the 

 removal of the egg-mass from the rock pool, a pair of red brown eyes 

 became plainly visible. In the Annals and Magazine of Natural History^ 

 vol, iv. (4th Series) the larva is very well hgured in illustration of a paper 

 by MTntosh : " On the Early Stages of Development of Phyllodoce 

 maculata." 



BELFAST NATURALISTS TIELD CLUB. 



March ij, — Geological Section. — James Orr in the Chair. — A 

 lecture was given by James Strachan on " Beekite or Cycloidal Chalce- 

 dony." After referring to the researches of several English and German 

 geologists on the subject, the lecturer gave a summary of his own in- 

 vestigations, in which he showed conclusively that the question of the 

 origin ' of the Beekite or cycloidal chalcedony was purely a chemical 

 one, involving the following factors : — ( i ) an organism with a calcareous 

 shell or framework ; (2) the presence of organic matter in the latter of 

 a gelatinous or colloid nature ; (3) the presence of circulating waters 

 in a porous rock or mud containing much silica. The chalcedony is a 

 chemical crystalline precipitate replacing carbonate of lime (aragonite 

 more frequently than calcite) and formed in the colloid medium of the 

 organic matter of the shell, &c., by osmotic action. The rings around 



