EAST KENT NATURAL HISTOKY SOCIETY. 



East Kent Natueal Histoet Society. 



President, the Eev. John Mitchinson, D.C.L., &c., Oxon. ; 

 Honorary Secretary, George Gulliver, r.R.S., &c. 



Confining, as before, tliese reports chiefly to observations in- 

 volving microscopic work, details will be omitted of extensive 

 business in other departments. But the whole proceedings of 

 the Society are so extensively and accurately reported, at Can- 

 terbury, in the ' Kentish Gazette,' as to afford an excellent 

 example of local journalism, or indeed of any journalism ; and 

 extracts therefrom appear in many of the scientific and other 

 periodical publications which pay but little or no attention to 

 the microscope. 



December lih, 1871. — The meeting prevented by the snow 

 storm. 



21st. — Colonel Horsley displayed the markings of Pleurosigma 

 qundra/u?)!, under a deep object-glass with the aid of Keade's 

 prism and Webster's condenser, in order to show that the effect 

 is the same as that produced, by the simpler method of illumina- 

 tion which he had shown at former meetings. Mr. Down exhi- 

 bited some deep telescopic eye-pie;es successfully adapted to the 

 microscope. Mr. Fullagar presented a preparation, mounted in 

 Canada Balsam, of the egg-shell of Locusta viridissima, showing 

 the trumpet-shaped microphyles admirably, Mr. Gulliver gave 

 an account of the big shark {Lamna corniihicd) which he had seen 

 landed at Hastings, Nov. 10, 1871 ; and after some observations on 

 the anatomy of the Selachii, and on the wanton waste of good food 

 and oil in the myriads of smaller sharks or dog-fish contemp- 

 tuously left to rot on our coasts, proceeded to a comparative 

 view, illustrated by dried specimens, of the red Corpuscles of the 

 Blood of Fishes. In the difierent orders of osseous fishes these 

 corpuscles do not vary much in size and form, though some are 

 of a much longer oval figure than others ; and sometimes they are 

 oat-shaped, crescentic, or even triangular or polygonal, all shapes 

 that may be well seen in the Gadidse, and that might occur 

 from alterations in the regularly oval or sub-oval discs, among 

 which are often seen some of circular figure. In the Carti- 

 laginous Fishes, as is well-known, the blood-discs are much 

 larger ; but they seldom present such changes of form, though 

 perhaps those of Myxine, long since described by Johannes 

 Miiller, might have been misshapen. In the Lampreys, though 

 the red corpuscles are circular, they conform both in size and 

 structure to the red corpuscles of other Pyrenaemata ; just as 

 the red corpuscles of Camelidse, though oval in shape, agree com- 

 pletely in size and structure with the red corpuscles of other 

 Apyrensemata. As to the blood-discs of the sharks, they are of 



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