1 91 9- Irish Societies. 51 



IRISH SOCIETIES. 



DUBLIN MICROSCOPICAL CLUB. 



February 12. — The Club met at Leinster House. 



W. F. GuNN (President) exhibited a preparation of one of tlie numerous 

 sugar substitutes which have been offered to the public, under fancy 

 names, during the period of sugar shortage. Microscopical and chemical 

 tests proved it to consist for the most part of wheat starch, with which 

 a very small percentage of a crystaUine substance — probably saccharin — 

 had been incorporated. 



J. N, Halbert showed a new genus and species of Acarina found 

 amongst decaying seaweed on the shore at Malahide. The genus belongs 

 to the Seius group of the Gamasidae and is distinguished from allied 

 genera by the fact that both the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the body 

 are continuously chitinized, with the exception of the leg region. The 

 sternal plate is obsolete, a rare feature in the Acarina. The mite has 

 also been found on the south-west coast of England. 



D. McArdle showed Lejeunea Macvicari, Pers. , bearing the peculiar 

 oval-shaped smooth perianths and amenta which are formed of about 

 three pairs of altered leaves which contain the oval shaped antheridia. 

 The former distinguishes it from any known European species which 

 have the perianth more or less plicate. He has not succeeded in 

 finding the plant in Ireland ; among those found here it has affinities 

 with the curious Lejeunea diversiloha. Spruce, in the obtuse or oblong- 

 oval apex of the leaves and in cell structure but is widely separated by 

 the absence of the lobule in many of the leaves, and above all by the 

 rigid texture of the stems. The specimens exhibited were found in 

 May, 1899, on old Elm stems in a ravine, Allt Allan, Moidarb, West 

 Inverness by Mr. S. McVicar, an excellent authority on Hepaticae. It 

 would be interesting to find it in Co. Kerry, the only known station for 

 Lejeunea divevsiloba. 



W. N. Allen showed slides of Hepaticae : — Metzgeria Jurcata, Frullania 

 dilatata, Plagiochila asplenoides and Lophocolea hidentata, mounted in 

 glycerine jelly treated with potassium bic>;romate by the method devised 

 by him and described in Knowledge for September, 1910. The slides, 

 mounted over nine years ago. were in a perfect state of preservation, 

 showing the practical utility of the process. 



Sir Frederick Moore exhibited a flower-bud of the rare Australian 

 sundew Drosera auriculata, a slender-growing, climbing species. The 

 sepals, unlike those of other sundews, are covered with highly-coloured 

 tentacles. 



March 12. — The Club met at Leinster House, the President (W. F. 

 Gunn) in the chair. 



Prof. G. H. Carpenter showed a preparation of the jaws of a male 

 specimen of Bibio marci in which a curious reticulated structure of the 

 surface of the cuticle is apparent on the lower aspect of the antepenultimate 



