lScS5 ] NEW-VORK MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 201 



are closely coiled, the spaces between rarely exceeding twice the 

 thickness of the shell walls. In the adult the septa between the 

 chambers number from thirty to forty in the outer turn of the 

 shell." 



PECTINATELLA MAGNIFICA. 



Mr. A, D. Balen : " Pedinatella magnifica is an interesting 

 object for the microscope when the colony is small. Often the 

 colonies are too large to be placed in any receptacle that can be 

 conveniently put under the instrument, having sometimes a 

 diameter of seven or more inches ; and they are not so easily 

 kept alive as is a small one. To cut off a part is to peril the life 

 of the whole. This species of Polyzoon is always found 

 attached to some support. Its statoblasts are lenticular, and 

 have anchor-shaped hooks radiating from their margin." 



CROSS-FERTILIZING APPARATUS OF LOBELIA SYPHILITICA. 



The Rev. J. L. Zabriskie : " The flower of Lobelia furnishes 

 an interesting example of the possession of ingenious apparatus 

 designed for securing cross-fertilization. In no one, perhaps, of 

 the thirteen species found native in the northern part of the 

 United States, is this contrivance exhibited more plainly than in 

 the species syphilitica. The five filaments are separate, but the 

 anthers are united into a capacious tube which is bent to one side 

 and, at the maturity of the stamens, is filled with a mass of loose 

 pollen-grains. The aperture of the tube is bearded on the lower 

 side with white bristles. The stigma is fringed with stiff hairs 

 which, radiating in all directions, occupy the whole diameter of 

 the space inclosed by the anthers. At the first opening of the 

 flower the stigma is found at the inner end of the anther-tube. 

 Then the style, elongating by growth, urges the stigma upward, 

 and pushes the pollen before it to the brush of bristles which, 

 attached, as we have seen, to the lower side of the aperture, 

 appears well adapted to transfer the pollen to the back of an in- 

 sect passing into the flower. 



"Another fact deserves notice. When an insect large enough 

 to press against this apparatus and bend it upward enters the 

 flower, the filaments, flexed by the pressure, retract the anther- 

 tube, while the style, which remains rigid, causes the stigma to 

 act in this case also like the plunger of a force-pump. 



