“cc On 
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subject for the study of the microscopist—from the beauty 
of their structure, the brilliancy of colour in some of them, 
and their concealed mode of growth and deyelopment—Mr. 
Perry proceeded to explain their physiology. Having no 
flowers, he said, nor apparent sexual organs, they have been 
placed amongst the Cryptogamia from their hidden manner of 
reproduction ; but the microscope has enabled botanists to 
trace certain organs which apparently act in a somewhat 
similar manner to the stamens, or anthers and pistils of 
Pheenogamous, or flowering plants. The reader then described 
the mode of growth of the spore-cell, its cap and operculum, 
and the peristome, or fringe of teeth, with which the latter is 
surrounded, and which is a beautiful object for the microscope. 
This series of teeth is very sensitively hygrometric ; and, after 
the falling off of the operculum, opens in dry weather, ap- 
parently to allow the rays of the sun to ripen the spores con- 
tained in the capsule, whilst a passing cloud, or a moist 
atmosphere causes it immediately to close and shield its 
precious contents. It is probable, also, that this hygrometric 
quality assists in the dispersion of the spores. Mr. Perry 
described the nature of these spores, which form the great 
difference between mosses and flowering plants; that one spore 
of a moss plant may be the parent of many plants, whilst in 
the flowering plant one seed can only produce one plant. 
Alluding to their wide dispersion over the earth, there being 
hardly any part of the known world where mosses are not 
found, Mr. Perry shewed how they have their value in pre- 
paring for higher orders of vegetation, and how, as in the case 
of Sphagnum or Bog Moss, and others which exist only in 
water, they act as fillers-up of pools of water, and by the 
decay of their lower portions, form beds of peat, which in the 
future may become valuable for fuel. The number of species 
at present known is about eight hundred, of which nearly 
four hundred have been found in the British Isles. 
A New Looatity For Trocheta Subviridis, a Rare Lanpb 
Lercu,”’ by Mr. Henry Lez, F.L:S., President.—Mr. 
Lee said—‘In February, 1869, I published in ‘ Land 
and Water’ my identification as Trocheta subviridis of certain 
land-leeches sent to the office of that paper by an observant 
resident in the neighbourhood of Horsham, Sussex, and in 
the May number of the ‘ Annals and Magazine of Natural 
History,’ Mr. Gedge, of Cambridge, mentioned haying found 
a memorandum in his note-book of his having received some 
from the same place, about the same date. As 7’. subviridis 
had been considered a doubtful British species, the communi- 
