^"'^■•] Field Naturalists' Club — Proceedings-. 51 



the lack of information furnished by exhibitors relative to their 

 specimens, the committee decided to adopt the procedure 

 outlined in the July issue of the journal, and made a special 

 appeal to members both for exhibits and remarks. 



Mr. J. Searle, referring to his exhibit of Sagitta, or " arrow 

 worms," said : — " The Sagitta, or ' arrow worms,' as they are 

 called in Europe, are famihar objects to our local fishermen, 

 who call them ' needles ' when they find them in abundance 

 in the meshes of their nets. They are spindle-shaped, elon- 

 gated, and extremely transparent animals, and measure up to 

 an inch in length. Though they have fins on the upper and 

 lower edges of the body, and also possess a tail, these are not 

 used for the purpose of locomotion, serving perhaps as balancers 

 or rudders, or, maybe, to help to keep the little animals from 

 sinking ; they swim by muscular movements of the whole body. 

 The Sagitta are hermaphrodite, the female organs being 

 situated in the trunk of the body, the male in the tail part. 

 The eggs, laid in the water, are pelagic, and float near the surface 

 of the sea. The young, when hatched from the egg, already 

 resemble the adult in shape, though they are, of course, extremely 

 small ; there is no larval stage in their development. Their 

 food consists of diatoms, infusoria, and other small pelagic 

 creatures. They are found in the seas of the world. Their 

 place in the scheme of classification is among the Annelida, and 

 they, with the allied genus Spadella, form the class Choetog- 

 natha, so called from the hair-like bristles that surround the 

 mouth parts. The specmiens exhibited were taken at night 

 in a tow net off St. Kilda pier." 



Mr. A. L. Scott drew attention to his exhibit of New Zealand 

 kauri gum, three kinds — clear, cloudy, and sugary. This gum, 

 he said, may be termed a sub-fossil product, for it is dug out of 

 the ground. It is supposed to have originated through forests 

 in the past ages having been destroyed by fire, the gum 

 melting and flowing into the porous soil. It is a near relative 

 to amber. The basalt specimen with the crystal-lined cavity, 

 so suggestive of a fairy cave, was obtained from the Brunswick 

 municipal quarries. 



Mr. F. Chapman, speaking in reference to his exhibit of a 

 vertical section of the cutting tooth of Chrysophrys, or Sea 

 Bream, shown under the microscope, said : — " As here shown 

 under a moderate power magnification, the base of the tooth 

 consists of coarsely tabulated dentine, although not sufficiently 

 vascular to merit the name vaso-dentine. This is sur- 

 mounted by a true dental layer filled with very fine branching 

 tubules, whilst covering the outer surface is a thin, but hard 

 and brilliant, layer of enamel. A curious feature of this tooth 

 is the continuity of the dentinal tubules into the enamel, 

 entering as simple or unbranched tubes. A similar structure 



