W. H. HARRIS ON MARINE MICROSCOPIC VEGETABLE ORGANISMS. 139 



Mr. B. W. Priest, and when in town I occasionally called upon 

 him ; it was on one of the latter occasions, I think, that a con- 

 versation took place regarding the organisms in question, and 

 subsequently he sent me a copy of a paper read by Mr. J. G. 

 Waller at a meeting of your Society held on March 28th, 1884, 

 entitled '' On Parasitic Vegetable Organisms in Calcareous 

 Particles of the Gabbard and Galloper Sands." This paper was 

 a revelation to me, and I at once decided to endeavour to verify 

 Mr. Waller's work, by seeking for specimens of the species he 

 had described amongst such British material as I then possessed. 

 The first material worked over was procured from Morte Bay, 

 and a careful search was rewarded by the finding of the bulk of 

 the forms figured and dealt with in the paper I have referred to ; 

 and I had the further pleasure of discovering one or two forms 

 which were either absent from the Gabbard material, or if present 

 had apparently not been discovered. 



As opportunity offered I set aside such pieces of shell as 

 appeared to me to be worthy of further investigation when time 

 would permit, and it was not until about three years since that 

 I decided to systematically work over the various samples of 

 material in my possession with the object of discovering new 

 forms and of learning something as to the distribution of these 

 organisms in both space and time. The result has been a 

 tolerably large collection of very curious and extremely inter- 

 esting specimens of this form of life. 



A provincial worker labours under difficulties from which the 

 dwellers in the Metropolis are exempt : rarely can he meet a 

 kindred mind to exchange ideas with, even when working on the 

 most commonplace subject, still less can he hope to do so when 

 he attempts more abstruse problems. Being anxious to know if 

 any work had been done Avhich extended the knowledge of this 

 subject further than Mr. Waller had carried it, I addressed a note 

 to that gentleman briefly detailing what I had done, and asking 

 if he knew of any literature in the English language upon the 

 subject, and if so where it was procurable. He very kindly 

 answered my inquiry in the negative, and urged me to draw 

 up and send him an account of what I had noticed, when 

 he would bring it forward at one of your meetings. This was a 

 courtesy I never anticipated, but which I fully appreciate, and 

 I can only hope that the members will not think I have been 



