164 The Irish Naturalist. [July, 



PROCEKDINGS OF IRISH SOCIETIES. 



ROYATv ZOOI^OGlCAIv SOCIETY. 



Receut gifts include a monkey from Mr. J. Wynne, a snake from Mr. 

 J. Stewart, two Puffins and a Black-backed Gull from Dr. E). Blake-Knox. 

 A Toggenburg Goat kid has been born in tlie Gardens, and twelve 

 monkeys have been bought. 



1 1,850 persons visited the Gardens during Ma}'. 



Dubinin Microscopicai, Ci.ub. 



ApRit 21. The Club met in the Royal Dublin Society's rooms, 

 Leinster House. Dr. Frazer (President) in the chair, showed a specimen 

 of stilbite in a volcanic vent from the Faroe Islands. The specimen had 

 formed part of the Giesecke collection. 



• Mr. G. H. Carpenter showed a new form of stridulating organ in a 

 spider — the male of the minute erigonine Entelccara broccha (L. Koch). 

 The inner corner of the coxa of the fourth leg is drawn out into a sharj^ 

 tooth which scrapes over a series of ridges and furrows on the chitinized 

 surface of the lung-plate. The specimen exhibited had been collected 

 on the summit of Slieve Donard, Mourne Mountains, by Mr. R. Welch 

 of Belfast, and the species is an addition to the fauna of the British 

 Islands, having been hitherto recorded only from the Tyrolese and Swiss 

 Alps. This stridulating organ is described and figured by the exhibitor 

 in Natural Science for May, 1898 (vol. xii., pp. 319-322). 



Mr. Henry H. Dixon showed a minute organism found by Dr. J. Joly 

 and himself last summer in Killiney Bay. It resembles the figures of 

 Xanthidia found in the chalk, and consists of a spherical test bearing a 

 number of hooked spines. A figure of the organism will appear shortly 

 in the Proc. Roy, Dub. Soc. 



The same member also showed sections illustrating the structure and 

 development of peculiar endogenous rhizoids in Luuularia cruciata, which 

 he found in specimens of that liverwort collected in February. The 

 endogenous rhizoids are developed from the cells adjoining the bulb-like 

 base of the first rhizoids. These cells, when the latter become effete, 

 grow out as hairs through the cell-cavity of their predecessor. There 

 may be as many as four of these endogenous rhizoids developed within 

 the cavity of the original rhizoids. Their walls often possess the 

 peculiar internal projections which characterise the walls of some of the 

 rhizoids of the liverworts. 



Mr. II. IIanna showed a preparation of the red seaweed Ceramium 

 fubyum, C Ag., showing minute structure of protoplasm. The method 

 of preparation was as follows : — The plant was killed in a 3 per cent, 

 solution of formol and left in it for one week— this acted as a slight but 

 efficient swelling reagent, more suitable for delicate tissues than sulphuric 



