BATH MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 65 



also^ true, as we have lately learned, that electricity and ether are 

 only terms for the same thing, may not a deeper study of 

 polarising substances account for this strange property ? I saw a 

 photograph of a flash of lightning, ribbon shaped ; was this because 

 the light was made to vibrate in one plane ? If so, that light was 

 polarised ! 



How little is known about the structure and uses of the 

 antennae ! Kirby and Spence, which we have in our library, will 

 give us valuable information. Sir John Lubbock, in No. Ixv., 

 International Scientific Series, and Linnean Transactions, 1862, 

 Vol. xxii., p. 283, treats on the subject, and a very interesting paper 

 was given to this Society some years ago on this matter, but after 

 all much more remains to be known. Just think of the variety in 

 shape of antennae : the leafy-branched antennae of Melolo7itha vul- 

 garis^ the common cockchafer, seven-branched in the male, six in 

 the female ; all the family of the Lamellicornes : the oak egger 

 moth, Lasciocampus qiiercus, with its branched antennae; the 

 plumose antennae of Liparis dispar ; or of the emperor moth, 

 Sahiniia carpini ; the incrassated antennae of Sphinx iigustri ; and 

 the immensely long antennae of Adila frischella^ eight times longer 

 than the body, with 197 joints, each joint equal to the other, and 

 having two hooks curved and placed on the eleventh and twelfth 

 joints. Of course, we are all familiar with the swelled joint on 

 one of the antennae in the Cyclops qiiadricornis ; the hook in the 

 antenna of the male of Lipeurus baculus, the pigeon louse, is also 

 noticeable. 



Again, in the microscopic world of Rotifera there is much 

 that remains to be done. That splendid work on Rotifera, by 

 Hudson and Gosse, the last and best on the subject, will give 

 great help. Prichard on Infusoria we ought not of course to 

 neglect ; it is in our library. Only let us bear in mind that he 

 wrote when it was thought that all Rotifera (or as then called 

 Rotatoria) were produced by infusions, which is very far from 

 being the case. 



And I cannot too strongly recommend those whose holiday 

 may lead them to the seashore, to study on the spot the beauties 

 there spread out before them. Strange it is how very delicate are 

 those microscopic forms which are found in abundance on the 

 International Journal of Microscopy and Natural Science. 



Third Series. Vol. V. f 



