106 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 



centre. Tlie blood is red, like that of several other members of 

 the same order, as the common earthworm, &c. Seenuris tuhifex and 

 *S'. vagans are abundant about Canterbury ; but though Scenuris 

 variegata is by no means a rare species, no previous record of its 

 having been found here is known. It is the most beautiful worm 

 of its tribe, being very curiously variegated in colour, which 

 appears the more remarkable from the transparency of the 

 creature admitting a view of the great blood vessel. This was 

 accordingly displayed under the microscopes before the meeting, 

 when the contractions of the vessel and the moving blood pre- 

 sented a curious spectacle, and an excellent example of the 

 vascular system of the Bristle-footed Worms. Indeed, from the ease 

 aftbrded by the transparency of this species for views of the blood- 

 vessels, the viscera, and the vibratile cilia, this creature is highly 

 prized by those zoologists who desire to be eye-witnesses of these 

 phenomena ; and no one can behold such curiously complex 

 structures without a feeling of admiration that these animals, 

 seemingly so abject in the zoological scale, have really a mar- 

 vellous and high organization, including a respiratory apparatus. 

 SpongiadcB. — The Honorary Secretary while explaining living 

 examples of SpongiUa Jluviatilis, took the opportunity of making 

 some remarks on the very interesting class of Sponges, which has 

 long been bandied about between the botanists and zoologists, 

 (and has not escaped the moralist'*), but has at length, by common 

 consent, been peremptorily settled in the animal kingdom. A 

 sponge consists of a skeleton or frame-work invested by the soft 

 living or organic parts. There are regular canals for the circula- 

 tion or rather passage of the water, with mouths or pores to 

 receive the incoming currents, and openings (' oscula') or vents 

 for the outgoing currents, regularly carried on by means of 

 vibratile cilia. All this might seem merely curious ; but in 

 truth it is highly important, as relating to central or fundamental 

 phenomena in physiology. The main facts were discovered by 

 Dr. Grant, the eminent Professor of Zoology at University Col- 

 lege, now an honoured veteran, still happily spared to that science 

 which he has adorned throughout Europe, and since admirably 

 reflected to Asia and America. And it is remarkable that 

 Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood of the higher 

 animals had remained a great fact, for centuries before Grant 

 demonstrated the analogous process in such abject creatures as 

 the Sponges. Of these the soft living part is composed of a 

 jelly-like and amoeboid substance (sarcode), receiving air and 

 food through the pores, and very prone after death to prove its 

 animal nature by putrefaction ; of which last fact any zoologist 

 who may engage in experiments on the Sponges of our seas and 

 fresh waters is likely to have unpleasant experience. Though 

 the mature Sponge is as fixed as an oyster, at an earlier period of 

 its existence, like the youngest oysters, that sponge had been a 

 tiny and free-roving animal, careering about at its own will by 

 means of its vibratile cilia ; and .having thus sported through its 



