igii- Irish Societies. 33 



DUBLIN MICROSCOPICAL CLUB. 



December 14. — The Club met at Leinster House. A. R. Nichols 

 (President) in the Chair. 



Prof. G. H. Carpenter showed the mouth-hooks and supporting 

 sclerites of the maggot of Oedemagena tarandi (Linn.), the warble fly of 

 the Reindeer. The mouth-hooks of this larva are very small, each shaped 

 like a double bow, and the supporting sclerites articulate with a strongly 

 chitinized and ridged area on the ventral wall of the pharynx. The 

 structures are figured by exhibitor in the Journal of Economic Biology, 

 vol. v., p. 150. 



R. Southern exhibited specimens of the parasitic Nematode worm 

 Trichocephaliis affinis (Rud.) from the intestine of the pig. This species 

 is easily differentiated from T. crenatus (Rud.), the species generally 

 found in the pig. T. affinis is commonly found in the sheep, and more 

 rarely in the ox, but appears never to have been recorded in the pig. 

 The specific characters were demonstrated. The specimens are Irish, 

 though no definite locality is known. They are in the collections of the 

 Irish National Museum. 



G. O. Sherrard exhibited a small nest of Vespa sylvestris, Linn., whose 

 construction had been begun on the frame of a bee-hive at the Albert 

 College, Glasnevin, in the spring of 19 10. 



J. Bayley Butler showed a stereoscopic microscope (Braus-Druner) 

 by Zeiss, with young specimens of living Echinoderms. The several 

 advantages of this instrument, notably stereoscopic effect, long working 

 distance, depth of focus, and mechanical movements were demonstrated. 



Dr. R. F. ScHARFF apologized for bringing a macroscopic object to the 

 Club, but thought he was warranted in doing so owing to the exceptional 

 interest of the exhibit. This was the complete skull of Smilodon californicus, 

 a Sabre-toothed Tiger from the Pleistocene asphalt deposits of Rancho 

 la Brea in Southern California, recently acquired by the Irish National 

 Museum. Dr. Scharff pointed out the chief features of interest in the 

 skull, and remarked that, owing to the shortness of the coronoid process 

 of the lower jaw, the temporalis muscle must have been much longer than 

 in the recent Tiger. The arrangement and length of the digastric, 

 masseter, and pterygoid muscles also wfere somewhat different, enabling 

 the Sabre-toothed Tiger to open its jaws far more widely than the recent 

 Tiger. The mouth could be opened sufficiently wide to enable the 

 animal to grasp the prey perfectly well with the great upper canine teeth. 



D. M'Ardle exhibited Arcyria punicea, Pers., one of the Mycetozoa 

 which he found growing on decayed wood in the Botanic Gardens, 

 Glasnevm. It first appeared as a white Plasmodium, which afterwards 

 developed numerous sporangia rS mm. high, o-8 to i mm. broad, having 

 a cyhndrical stalk 0-5 to i mm. high, Q-i mm. thick, furrowed, colour 

 red-brown, filled with spore-hke cells and the sporangium of a bright 

 crimson colour with a well marked cup to which the capilhtia are attached. 

 It is an elastic network of flattened red threads with thickenings in the 

 form of cogs or spines on one side only, arranged in a loose spiral. The 

 spores are pale red nearly smooth. The capillitium and spores were 



