TROCEEDINGS OF THE QUEKETT MICROSCOPICAL CLUB. 337 



himself and the members, which he hoped would be cemented 

 even more strongly, and he was sure that the time he spent with 

 them would be a source of profit and pleasure to himself, and 

 he hoped to them also. 



The business of an Ordinary Meeting was then proceeded with. 

 One new member was elected, and proposal forms for three others 

 for consideration at the next meeting were read. Mr. W. Traviss 

 exhibited a little apparatus he had designed, by means of which 

 surface tension could be very effectively demonstrated under 

 the microscope. It was a small cone, open at the top, which 

 could be placed on the stage, and on a film of amyl acetate being 

 stretched across the opening evaporation at once commenced, 

 and under the microscope the currents set up in the film, and 

 its gradual thinning away, could be watched till breakage 

 occurred. Mr. A. E. Hilton showed under a microscope a speci- 

 men of Trichia afjinis, one of the Mycetozoa. It was reputed 

 common, he said, but he had not come across it yet in this 

 country. The present specimen h9,d come from Dublin. This 

 species has a hygroscopic capillitium, consisting of elaters covered 

 with spiral bands, which make them twist and move with any 

 alteration in the moisture of the atmosphere. His chief interest 

 in the study of the Mycetozoa was concerned with their bearing 

 on problems of biology, and in that connection he was very glad 

 that Dr. Rendle is the custodian of them at the British Museum. 

 The President, in commenting on Mr. Hilton's remarks, said he 

 was rather proud of having the group under his charge; they 

 were neglected by the zoologists, and the botanists took them up. 



Mr. C. D. Soar then gave a description of two new species of 

 water mites, illustrated with lantern views of the entire speci- 

 mens and of the minute details upon which the discrimination 

 depends. One of the species had been found on Dartmoor, by 

 Mr. G. T. Harris, to whom the Club was indebted for many inter- 

 esting communications respecting his finds in that locality. Mr. 

 Soar had named it Dartia harrisii, in honour of the place and of 

 its discoverer. The other species belonged to the genus Eylais. 

 Mr. Soar had given it the specific name of Wilsoni in honour of 

 Mr. Wilson, who found four specimens at Staijies at one of the 

 Club's excursions. Besides describing the new species Mr. Soar 

 at the same time gave a short history of the genus and showed 

 how for many years only one species had been recorded, namely, 



