281 



of " The Microscope and its Revelations " ; and to Mr. Scoiirfield 

 for his donation of seventeen slides of British Fresh-water 

 Entomostraca, which would form a useful addition to the type 

 collections in the Society's Cabinet. 



Mr. Karop said it would be remembered that at their last 

 meeting he mentioned that they had a paper '• On the Spermato- 

 zoon of the Rat," sent by Mr. Merlin, but in consequence of 

 the other matters before the meeting, there was not time to 

 read it, and it was therefore agreed that it should stand over 

 until the present meeting. Since then, however, they had 

 received another paper from Mr. Merlin, and the Council had 

 decided that, as the second paper was upon a subject of more 

 general interest than the former one, the first should be taken 

 as read and published in the Journal, and the second should 

 be read at the present meeting. 



Mr. Merlin's paper " On the Critical EmjDloyment of the 

 Microscope for ordinary Working Purposes " was then read by 

 Mr. Karop. 



Mr. W. B. Stokes said he was sure that all who had heard this, 

 paper must have been greatly interested by it, for it was not only, 

 as the author suggested, likely to be useful to the youngsters 

 amongst them, but would also, no doubt, be profitable to many 

 of the more advanced microscopists. Mr. Merlin had mentioned 

 the advantage of a darkened room and of resting the eyes, and 

 he could himself say that he had often been able to see much 

 more after having rested his eyes for a time. As regarded long 

 and short tubes, they often saw even in that room objectives 

 which had been made to work on short tubes put upon long- 

 tube microscopes, and of course it was impossible to get the best- 

 results in that way. Then, as to correcting for thickness of 

 cover-glass by lengthening or shortening the tube, he had found 

 that as tubes were usually made it was not possible to get a 

 sufficient range of distance, seeing that anything between 4 in. 

 and 11 in. might be wanted. He had listened to this paper with 

 a great deal of interest ; the subject was one which was of much 

 practical importance, and he hoped it would not be allowed 

 to drop. 



On the motion of the Chairman a very hearty vote of thanks 

 was accorded to Mr. Merlin for his paper, and to Mr. Karop 

 for reading it. 



