36 EAST KENT NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



December 5th, 1872. 



Blood-dinks of Salmonidcd. — The Hon. Sec. having been af- 

 forded, by the courtesy of Mr. Frank Buckland, an opportunity 

 of examining some of the living specimens in the museum of 

 economic pisciculture, at South Kensington, exhibited slides of 

 the red blood-corpuscles of Sahno fontinalis and Salmoferox. and 

 compared them with the corresponding corpuscles of other 

 species of the same family of fishes and with several more 

 osseous fishes of distinct orders. The results, in conformity 

 with those described and depicted in Mr. Gulliver's memoir, 

 read at the Zoological* Society, November 19th, 1872, showed 

 the pre-eminent largeness among osseous fishes, so far as is yet 

 known, of the blood-disks of the SalmonidaB ; while those of Salmo 

 fontinalis, having a mean length of x^j^^th and breadth of -saV^th 

 of an inch, are the largest at present measured of this family. 

 Hence it may be concluded that it is characterised among the 

 osseous orders by the ^large size of its blood-disks ; but in the 

 Smelt {Osmerus eperlanus) this character is not maintained. 



Sphceraphides of Caryophyllacew. — Mrs. Dean presented speci- 

 mens of Silene maritima, of which the intimate structure was 

 examined at the meeting, when the tissue of the leaves and stalks 

 was found to be studded with sphaeraphides, very variable in 

 size, but having a mean diameter of about •j-jW^'^ o^ ^"^ inch. 

 This is an admirable British example of these bodies, and really 

 a beautiful microscopic object. These sphaeraphides, which are 

 common in Caryophyllacese, were well shown in the Deptford Pink 

 (Dianthus armeria), at the meeting of the society on August 3rd, 

 1871, reported in the ' Quarterly Journal of Microscopical 

 Science,' January, 1872. 



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