29 
One dozen slides were presented to the Club’s cabinet by Mr. E. 
Lovett, and one dozen by Mr. K. McKean. Thanks were voted to 
the donors. 
T. W. Wonrer, Esq., Curator of the Brighton Museum, and 
Honorary Secretary of the Brighton Natural History Society, then 
read the following paper ‘“‘On ScaLES CHARACTERISTIC OF THE MALE 
Sex 1n Burrerrcizs.’’—Among insects, scales are not confined to 
any one group, though they are found on every member of the 
division Lepidoptera, the scale-winged as their name implies, but, in 
connection with microscopical work, the scales obtained from certain 
insects have been, and still are, favourites with microscopists very 
deservedly, because, through differences of opinion as to the mark- 
ings on sundry scales, together with an attempt to resolve their 
markings, we owe the great improvements made in objectives since 
the achromatic microscope has been an instrument of research and 
not a mere optical toy. As all know, certain scales, such as those 
from the gnat, (Lepirma, Podura, or Lepidocyrtes), and three or 
four butterflies, viz., a blue and a white of English origin, and a 
gorgeously coloured foreigner, have been employed along with 
sundry silecious valves of plants, named Diatoms, as test objects, 
and the objectives have been considered up to or below the mark, 
accordingly as they are able or not to resolve certain feigned mark- 
ings seen by objectives of particular aperture and magnifying power. 
Again, to enable these objectives or others of different aperture and 
power, to resolve the same or other markings, various adjuncts to 
the microscope have been devised, such as condensers, prisms, &c. 
And though many, alas, too many microscopists in this country 
have spent nearly all their time in trying to see exactly the same 
things that other men have, or say they have seen, yet within the 
last few years a very considerable addition has been made to our 
knowledge of many physiological facts, as well as the resolutions of 
diatoms and scale makings, and though we may not accept Dr. 
Royston Piggott’s conclusions, yet had he not ventilated the subject 
through his ‘‘ Rouleaux of Beads,’”’ we might have gone on plodding 
in the same steps as those before us, and accepted our view of an 
object as a sufficient test of the power of an objective. Whatever view 
we may take of the markings of scales, there seems to us no manner 
of doubt that the scales of insects are nothing more nor less than 
modified hairs of greater or less thickness, more or less flattened or 
cylindrical according to circumstances and the position on the body, 
legs, or wings of the animal on which they are found. If, then, 
we regard all scales as modified hairs, and consider that hairs are 
composed of cells, we may see our way out of some of the difficulties 
into which the learned among microscopists have led us, and we may 
also understand how an under and an upper surface, two lamine, 
striated surfaces, ribs, and sundry other puzzling terms, have come 
into existence when speaking of scales. Those who have written or 
