66 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 



Mr. Crowe exhibited "Welsh specimens of Euastrum didelta con- 

 jugated, showing the zygospore fully formed. This is very like that 

 of E^iastriim oblongum, only, as a matter of course, the species 

 being itself considerably smaller, so too is the zygospore. Ealfs 

 does not figure the zygospore of this species, but he describes it 

 as spinous, the spines subulate. They do not, however, appear to 

 be subulate but nearly cylindrical, and ending bluntly, and they 

 are pellucid. Sometimes they are not posed vertically on the 

 zygospore, but lean a little in different directions, and this is more 

 especially the case in regard to those spines which project through 

 the apertures of the empty halves of the parent-cells into their 

 cavities ; this circumstance, that is the divergence of the spines, 

 seems as if it assisted in retaining the empty halves for some time 

 attached. 



By a curious coincidence, Mr. Archer too was able to present 

 Irish specimens (from near Carrig Mountain) of the same species, 

 Euastrum didelta, also conjugated, and showing in all respects 

 characters similar to those of the examples exhibited by Mr. 

 Crowe, gathered in "Wales. Conjugated specimens of this species 

 had also presented themselves to Mr. Archer during his late 

 excursion to Wales. He was besides able to bring forward fine 

 conjugated examples of Euastrum oblonrjum from the Co. "Wick- 

 low locality which had presented the zygospores of Euastrum 

 didelta simultaneously exhibited, — an opportunity to see at one 

 time the zygospores of these in themselves common forms, yet 

 seemingly very rarely found conjugated, would not be without 

 interest to the meeting. 



Mr. Archer likewise exhibited a solitary " skeleton " brought 

 from Wales, the only one which he had seen out of Ireland, and it was 

 not living, of the Eadiolarian E-hizopod he had previously found 

 and exhibited living from " Callery-bog," near Bray (see minutes 

 of April last). This creature seemed to him to come nearest to 

 certain marine forms close to Heliosphjera amongst the Ethmo- 

 sphaerida (Hack.). Erom them, however, it differed in at least two 

 points seemingly of importance, one of a negative, the other of a 

 positive character. In the first place the so-called "yellow cells " 

 were quite absent, and in the second place the hollow perforate 

 globe, containing within it the sarcode actinophryan body, was 

 supported, when living, upon a nearly pellucid stipes. At first 

 Mr. Archer had overlooked this stipes, and even when, by the 

 seeming constancy of its occurrence in the living specimens, it had 

 caught attention, he had at first taken it for a fibre of some 

 Leptothrix-like plant upon which the perforate shell had got 

 accidentally, as it were, impaled. But by degrees it became 

 evident that this hyaline thread-like structure, which bore aloft 

 the perforate globe, was indeed part of the organisation of this 

 curious and interesting form. Two points had been mentioned 

 in which this creature presented a dissimilarity to the marine 

 Eadiolarians. A further more important negative character 

 would be the absence of a "centi'al capsule," if really there were 



