177 



The Chairman thought this would be found a very useful 

 invention ; it was simple in construction and very handy for 

 the purpose. 



Mr. Karop said that Mr. Davis had mentioned the objections 

 to the use of the ordinary forceps, which every one must have had 

 experience of who had used them for the purpose. When he was 

 doing work of this kind he used to find that the ends of the steel 

 forceps very soon got corroded, and he made some horn points to 

 protect them. These answered the purpose very well, but of 

 course they were easily destroyed if too much heat was applied. 

 It was, however, a very easy matter to renew them ; but the 

 forceps were not self-holding, like those of Mr. Davis. 



Mr. John Shephard exhibited and described a new species of 

 Brachionus from the colony of Victoria. He said that microscopy 

 in Victoria was chiefly carried on by members of the Field 

 Naturalists' Society of Victoria, which had a membership at the 

 present time of about two hundred. Amongst them were men 

 who had done much to describe the fauna and flora of Australia, 

 which in some parts were being so greatly injured by indiscriminate 

 hunting that it had been found necessary to protect many of the 

 animals — such as the ornithorhyncus and even the kangaroo — by 

 legislative enactments. These measures, though not completely 

 successful, had done something towards checking the waste. The 

 collecting of Rotifera was done chiefly in the neighbourhood of 

 Melbourne, and all had been collected within twenty miles of the 

 city ; so that it might be said that the Rotifera of the colony 

 were almost as yet untouched. The attention they had given to 

 the subject had already revealed some new species, and amongst 

 these some unique and remarkable forms. One of these, which 

 he showed that evening — Lacinularia striolata — was, when found, 

 usually present in very large numbers, each colony being formed 

 by a kind of swarming after the manner of bees. The eggs were 

 of two kinds — resting, and those which hatched out at once. 

 Those which hatched immediately sent out the young ones to 

 gather together, and they then formed a quantity of mucus, 

 which after a short time surrounded them. After a time they 

 arranged themselves with their toes towards the centre, and then 

 they poured out mucus in one dii-ection, which eventually formed 

 a peduncle, and the colony was thus found to consist of indi- 

 viduals all of the same age. Lacinularia pedunculata was another 



