19 
September 21st, 1870.—A Mertine ror CoNVERSATION AND THE 
Disptay or Ossects.—There was a good attendance of 
members, with their microscopes, and many interesting 
Natural History specimens were exhibited. 
The PresipEnt distributed to the members present some 
mud, containing Foraminifera, dredged from Vigo Bay, and 
some leaves of Onosma, shewing stellate scales; and referred 
to the loss the Club had sustained by the death of so pro- 
mising a member as Mr. Alfred Haward. 
October 5th, 1870.—The PrusipEnt received at his residence, in 
the afternoon, and again in the evening, several members of 
the Club who desired instruction in preparing microscopic 
objects. Various materials were mounted in their presence 
in balsam, fluid, and dry cells, and the different processes 
were clearly explained, and their simplicity demonstrated. 
October 19th, 1870.—‘* On Sintcrous ANcHoRING SponcEs,”’ 
by Mr. Henry Lez, F.L.S., President.—Mr. Lux exhibited 
some fine specimens of Hyalonema, Euplectella, and Phe- 
ronema, from his own cabinet, and from those of Dr. 
Bowerbank and Mr. W. 8S. Kent, of the British Museum, 
with microscopic demonstrations of their structural anatomy ; 
and gave a succinct summary of the widely-differing 
opinions which had been held concerning each of them, 
and of the many points relating to them, which, in- 
dependently of their extreme beauty, rendered them of 
the greatest interest. Commencing with Hyalonema—the 
‘‘ slass-rope sponge ’’—Mr. Lee said: that within the last six 
years, so little was known of it, that many persons believed 
it to be an artificial production of the Japanese, akin to 
their spurious specimens of fabricated mermaids. The 
microscope haying proved it to be a natural organism, it 
quickly became a ‘‘bone of contention” amongst celebrated 
naturalists. A perfect specimen presented the appearance 
of a mass of dried sponge. from which sprang from 20 to 
50, or even more, flinty spicules of the length of 12 inches, 
more or less. These long spicules were twined spirally on 
each other like the strands of a loosely-twisted rope, and 
around them, for about half their length, was generally 
wrapped a membranous-looking envelope, studded with polyp- 
like excrescences. Professor Max Schultz described the 
sponge as the base or root from which sprang upward the 
long glassy spicules essentially belonging to it; and the 
membranous crust, with its excrescences, as a zoanthoid 
polyp which was in the habit of attaching itself parasitically 
