PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 301 
preserve objects for the microscope as well as the best professional 
mounters in London. In corroboration of the first part of this 
statement, I may tell you that we have lately been rather amused 
by reading in a recent number of a scientific journal a descrip- 
tion by the eminent naturalist, Mr. Gosse, of a supposed new 
Dinocharis, to which he has given a specific name in honour of 
its supposed discoverer, but with which little creature we have 
been perfectly well acquainted for the last four or five years, and 
possess drawings of it made as far back as that period; whilst in 
this very month’s ‘ Intellectual Observer’ Mr. Slack, another 
microscopist, announces, as a discovery, that Vaginicola valvata, 
hitherto supposed to be confined to a marine habitat, is to be 
found also in fresh water! Why, ladies and gentlemen, we 
could have informed Mr. Slack of this fact years ago, and could 
send him as many specimens as he might wish for, from the 
ponds and ditches of this neighbourhood! As to the latter part 
of my statement, I need only say that I know at least of one 
gentleman who thinks it a very easy matter to dissect out the 
gizzard of a flea, skin it, clean it, lay it out so as to show its 
structure, and then mount it permanently as an object for his 
cabinet, whilst many of us find no difficulty in extracting the 
teeth of small slugs or snails, cleaning, and mounting them for 
the microscope. 
At our last soirée the objects under the microscopes were 
arranged on a systematic plan. We attempted to show you the 
gradual growth of both vegetable and animal, from the primitive 
cell to the higher organism. To do this we were obliged to 
exhibit objects which, though intrinsically interesting, were not 
very striking to the eyes. On this occasion we pursue another 
plan. Each member will exhibit such objects as he thinks will 
be most pleasing to his friends ; they will therefore be of a prettier 
and more popular kind; but it must be remembered that each 
specimen must have a history of its own, and I am sure that 
every member will be delighted to give an outline of that history 
to those who are not satisfied with the mere gratification of the 
eye, but would wish to know something of the nature of the 
object he is looking at. Under some of the microscopes are 
placed a few of the more interesting species of Infusoria and 
other minute aquatic creatures that crowd in countless myriads 
the pools and ditches of our meadows, and I am sure that those 
persons who have never seen them before this evening will leave 
this hall, after having done so, with a higher sense of the inexhaus- 
tibility of nature and of the creative power, if I may use the 
expression, of the Almighty. (Captain Lang then cited several 
well-known cases, proving the practical use of the microscope in 
the every day affairs of life, and in continuation said)— 
Probably many of you ladies have read with interest the dis- 
cussions that have been going the round of the papers relative 
to the parasitic gregarines of the present fashionable chignon. 
For my own part I consider the whole matter a gross exaggera- 
