REPORTS OF SOCIETIES. 105 



Ellis's " Essay on Corallines." A short paper on the subject 

 by Dr. G. D. Brown, President of the P. M.S., was distributed 

 freely about the room, and has been kindly sent to us for 

 publication. It will be found on page 73 of the present number. 



GREENOCK NATURAL-HISTORY SOCIETY. 



At a meeting of the above Society, held in the Watt Museum 

 Hall on Thursday evening, Mr. M. F. Dunlop read a paper 

 entitled '^ Notes on the Rotifera." He remarked that Rotifera 

 appear to have been discovered about the end of the seven- 

 teenth or beginning of the eighteenth centuries. Leuwenhoek, 

 a Dutch naturalist, was usually credited with the discovery in 

 1702; but in the "Philosophical Transactions" for 1696 a 

 description is given of an animalcule observed in 1694 by Mr. 

 John Harris, an English naturalist, which Mr. Saville Kent in his 

 new work on the " Infusoria " recognises as the common Rotifer. 

 As to the peculiar wheel-Hke organs which give the order its 

 name, the early observers believed that two toothed wheels 

 were placed on the front of the little animal, and were rapidly 

 revolved on their axes. But they were unable to conceive how such 

 a movement could consist with parts maintaining an organic connec- 

 tion between themselves. Mr. Dunlop quoted from various works 

 showing the slow process by which the idea of mechanical wheels 

 was got rid of, and the idea adopted that the " motion " was an 

 optical illusion produced by the vibratory movement of the cilia, 

 with which the organs are furnished. He stated that the Rotifera 

 were all microscopic, the largest in size not exceeding T-36th of 

 an inch, the smallest being only the i-5ooth of an inch. He then 

 gave a brief description of their structure, referring to their 

 various organs — the mastax, stomach, respiratory tubes, etc., and 

 to their nervous and muscular systems. After alluding to the 

 difference of opinion which existed as to the position of the 

 Rotifera in the animal kingdom, Huxley and others classing them 

 under the Annuloida, and Gosse and others thinking that they 

 deserved a place amongst the lower Crustaceans, he concluded by 

 describing the classes and families into which the order is divided 

 by Ehrenberg; and, with reference to one of the species — Afiurc^a 

 lo7igispina (size, i-4oth of an inch) — he mentioned that it was 

 new to science in 1879, having in the beginning of that year been 

 discovered by Professor Kellicott, Buffalo, U.S., in Niagara water. 

 In the same year, in July, it was found by Mr. Levick, in Olton 

 Reservoir, near Birmingham, Dr. C. T. Hudson, an authority on 

 such subjects, identifying the Rotifer as the same as that found in 



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