18 EAST KENT NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



about the same size in the great Porbeagle as in the small and 

 coniDion dog-fish, as noticed in the ' Quart. Journ. Mic. Science' 

 for January, 1872. Hewson, upwards of a century since, dis- 

 covered the large size of the blood-discs of Plagiostomi. 



January 18^/t, 1872. — Mr. Bell exhibited a live Cliamceleon 

 vulgaris, from which some blood was then obtained and its red 

 corpuscles examined. Their mean long diameter was found to be 

 -jj-g-j and their short diameter 2-4V0 ^^ ^^ inch, measurements 

 which correspond nearly with those of the blood-discs of other 

 scaly reptiles. Mr. Gulliver dissected a fresh Smelt {Osmerus 

 eperlanus) , in order to illustrate a lecture which he gave on the 

 structure of this and the other members of the Salmonidse. Of 

 the Maxillary Teeth, characteristic of the family, he showed how 

 they were often not represented, even by our best artists, in 

 many of the otherwise excellent paintings and engravings of these 

 fish, a defect which was painful to the eye of the ichthyologist ; 

 and that art should, in this as in other cases, take a lesson from 

 nature. The so-called Adipose Pin, commonly described as 

 " without any rays whatever," was shown, under an object-glass 

 of half-an-inch focal length, to be quite devoid of any fat, and 

 provided with a multitude of very thin rays, some of which occa- 

 sionally project beyond the free margiu of the fin. But these rays, 

 being homogeneous, transparent, and structureless, like the fibres 

 of the crystalline lens, and unprovided with muscle for their move- 

 ments, are not quite identical with the true rays of the locomotive 

 fins. The Fibres of the Crystalline Lens were shown to afford a 

 good example of the sinuous and interlocking edges ; and these 

 being compared with those of other fishes, were proved to aff'ord 

 excellent taxonomic characters between diff"erent members of the 

 class. Thus, e.g. the lens-fibres of the Lampreys are smooth at 

 the edges ; of the common Eel but little indented ; of the Conger 

 more so ; and, of the majority of the class, so very much and 

 deeply notched, as to produce the well-known interlocking or 

 dove-tailing of the margins of the fibres, as is well seen in 

 the salmon-family. Nor is the difference of the diameter of 

 the fibres less remarkable in diff'erent orders of the class. The 

 facts were illustrated by preparations, and extemporaneous dissec- 

 tions, under the deep glasses of Colonel Horsley's, Mr. Sydney 

 Harvey's, and Mr. Bell's microscopes, thus showing how easily 

 the objects may be displayed, even by the most inexperienced 

 micrographers, and what really beautiful preparations may be 

 made of these fibres from the lenses of different fishes, ever 

 ready at the shops as well as in the great field of nature. In 

 fact, this kind of microscopic inquiry is at once so useful and 

 delightful, both in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, that it 

 seems amazing that one or other of our great Microscopical 

 Societies has not yet given precise directions concerning the 

 various branches thereof, for the guidance of those numberless 

 microscopists who are now wasting their energies in advertisements 

 and anxious searches for "good stuff" for the microscope." But 



