207 



Mr. Scourfield read a paper on " The Winter Egg of a rare 

 Water Flea," illustrated by diagrams and drawings on the board. 



The President said this was a paper more for the laboratory 

 at home than for them to discuss at the meeting. It was a paper 

 on morphology worked out -^^dth admirable detail, and one which 

 did Mr. Scourfield a great deal of credit. 



Mr. Karop inquired if it was always the case that the depo- 

 sition of the ephippial egg involved the death of the female. 



Mr. Scourfield said this was not so — it was the moulted part of 

 the shell which was destroyed. 



Mr. Hardy said his experience was rather the other way. He 

 asked if Mr. Scourfield had ever hatched out these winter eggs 

 to see if there was any difference between the winter and the 

 summer eggs when hatched out. He had always thought the 

 eggs were deposited at the bottom of the pond to hatch out in 

 the natural way, the parent dying. 



Mr. Scourfield said it was quite true in some cases that the 

 animal had great difliculty in getting away from the winter egg 

 with the old shell attached to it. In the majority of cases, 

 however, the animal did get away. Many of the common 

 Daphnias went right through the winter and started again in 

 the spring. He collected the specimen in Barton Broad in 

 September. He had intended to hatch out these eggs, but had 

 never seen them actually coming out. As far as was known the 

 animal hatched out exactly the same in every respect as from 

 the summer eggs. 



Mr. Bryce inquired whether if the egg were kept for several 

 months any difference could be seen which would indicate the 

 process of development ? 



Mr. Scourfield said the case was so dark that it was practically 

 impossible to follow the changes. The egg rested for months 

 until favourable conditions for development occurred ; the difficulty 

 of observation arose from the dark colour of the envelope itself, 

 and not from a darkened colour due to segmentation of the egg. 



The thanks of the Club were voted to Mr. Scourfield for his 

 interesting communication. 



Announcements of meetings for the ensuing month were 

 then made, and the proceedings terminated with the usual 

 conversazione. 



