164 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
of animals. You will remember that a correspondent of the 
‘Times’ stated in that journal that he had found these bodies in 
the muscular tissues of some slaughtered cattle which had been 
infected with the cattle plague, and this was mentioned as a new 
discovery. But all who are acquainted with microscopic subjects 
know that they have been made out for years, and have puzzled 
all microscopic observers as to their origin and purpose in the ani- 
mal economy. These bodies appear, as "T have stated, to be a part 
of some degeneration of sarcode, or of the muscular tissue itself; 
and there we seem to be either at an issue or a stand-still as to 
what more can be made of the matter. But as regards the ques- 
tion whether these bodies have been discovered in “ chignons,”’ 
this seems to have been alla myth. Dr. Tilbury Fox, a very able 
investigator in these matters, having made a careful examination 
of numbers of the hairs used as materials in the manufacture of 
chignons, could not discover anything of the kind; and how such 
an idea could have got abroad seems as difficult to account for 
as those extraordinary paragraphs in the ‘Times’ from time to 
time, copied from ‘ Galignani’ and other foreign sources, and which 
never could have found their way into a journal of any scientific 
pretensions. But I may tell you that Mr. Norman, who is highly 
qualified to inquire into these matters, has during the last few 
weeks made hundreds of investigations, without having once dis- 
covered anything approaching to a body of the kind in any of the 
hairs used in this particular manufacture. He called on a whole- 
sale dealer—and you may judge of the extent of his business when 
I tell you that he informed Mr. Norman that the late outery 
against chignons had caused a falling off of several hundred pounds 
in his monthly returns—he went through the whole stock of this 
dealer, and never once found anything of the kind. The only in- 
stance met with by Mr. Norman was in dirty and ill- prepared 
hairs, where he met with a few of the so-called “ nit-cases,” or 
pediculi shells; but these were, of course, in all instances, empty. 
Dr. Tilbury Fox, too, states that he has only seen in hair of Ger- 
man origin a species of “mildew” fungus, which might give rise, 
if implanted on the surface of weak persons, to the disease called 
“ringworm.’’? We may therefore conclude that the story about 
gregarines in hair is totally devoid of truth. 
Mr. Ince, F.L.S.—I may mention that the letter to the news: 
papers was written by two young men by way of hoax. 
A vote of thanks to Dr. McIntosh for his paper was passed. 
A paper by Mr. W. U. Whitney, “On the Change which ac- 
companies the Metamorphosis of the Tadpole, &c.,”’ was read. 
This paper was illustrated by a series of remarkably beautiful 
drawings on a large scale. 
Mr. Jazez Hoge spoke in yery high terms of Mr. Whitney’s 
exhaustive and elaborate paper, and the novel mode in which he 
had worked out the subject. Mr. Hogg continued—The great 
and new feature in Mr. Whituey’s paper appears to be the novel 
