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July 3rd, 1876.—Conversational meeting--Two members present. 
August Ist, 1876.—Conversational meecting—Six members present, 
several of whom brought microscopes and exhibited various shells 
of diatoms, foraminifere, &c. 
September 4th, 1876.—Conversational meeting—Six members present. 
September 20th, 1876.——Paper read by Mr. Henry Turner, on 
“TRILOBITES AND THEIR MopERN REPRESENTATIVES.” The 
President, Mr. Henry Les, in the chair. 
The minutes of the last meeting were read and confirmed. 
Mr. Stewart Overton was ballotted for and duly elected a 
member. 
The following gentlemen were proposed for membership :— 
Mr, T. Loftus, Outram Lodge, Lower Addiscombe Road; Mr. 
Harvey Roberts, Norfolk House, Cheam Road, Sutton; Mr. 
James Packham, 16, Katherine Street, Croydon; Mr. John Albert 
Toms, of Lytchett Villa, Bedford Park, Croydon; and Dr. 
Williams, of Oakfield, Duppas Hill, Croydon. 
The PresipENT announced that the Committee had decided to 
hold the annual soirée on Wednesday, 29th November. 
Mr. H. Turner then read a paper on ‘‘ Trilobites and their 
Modern Representatives.” Ho said that Trilobites had always been 
objects of special interest to the geologist on account, partly of the 
former obscurity of their nature, partly by reason of their great 
beauty and variety of form; but chiefly, he thought, because of— 
even to the geologist—their amazing antiquity, for they were, until 
somewhat recently, considered to have been among the earliest of 
living things. In order that they might properly understand what 
was known of these long extinct animals, it was necessary that they 
should know somewhat of the nature and habits of existing crustacea 
which, if not their lineal descendants, may be considered the modern 
representatives of the Trilobites. As his type of crustacea, Mr. 
Turner took the common edible lobster (homarus vulgaris); with 
whose general appearance everybody was familiar, and the anatomy 
and physiology of which he described minutely, commencing at the 
body, which comprises the abdomen, commonly called the tail, and 
the cephalo-thorax, consisting of the head and chest. These were 
composed of 20 rings, ealled ‘‘ somites,’ more or less like each 
other ; of these the head eontained six, the thorax eight, and the 
abdomen six. The latter are connected by flexible integument ; they 
overlap each other from front to rear, and are moveable, so that 
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