41 



carving belonging to the seventeenth century. The block was taken 

 from a house of Mr. H. Gorringe, at Kingston-on-Sea, while some 

 alterations were being made, and, being of a rather interesting 

 character, was forwarded to the Brighton Museum. 



IMPOSITION, 



Mr. C. F . Dennet submitted specimens of imitations of silk, the 

 cheapness of which, had they been silk, attracted his attention. The 

 fabric, however, was almost jute alone, so manufactured as to appear 

 silk to the untutored eye, and to deceive the touch of an experienced 

 person. 



February 25TH. 



MICROSCOPICAL MEETING.— MR. T. W. WONFOR 

 ON "THE SCALES OF BUTTERFLIES." 



Among insects, scales were not confined to any one group, though 

 they were found on every member of one division, the Lepidoptcra, the 

 scale-winged, as their name implied, but in connection with microsco- 

 pical work the scales obtained from certain insects had been, and still 

 were, favourites with microscopists, very deservedly, because, through 

 differences of opinion as to the markings on sundry scales, together 

 with an attempt to resolve those markings, we owed the great improve- 

 ments made in objectives since the achromatic microscope had been 

 an instrument of research, and not a mere optical toy. 



As all knew, certain scales, such as those from the gnat, Lepisma, 

 Podura, or Lepidocyrtus, and three or four butterflies, viz., a blue and 

 a white of English origin, and a couple of gorgeously coloured 

 foreigners, had been employed, along with sundry siliceous valves of 

 plants named diatoms, as test objects, and our objectives had been 

 considered up to or below the mark accordingly as they were able or 

 not to resolve certain figured markings, 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 adjimcts to the microscope had been devised, such 



