320 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
year regular monthly meetings have been held, with large attendances 
of members. A large cabinet has been purchased, and many valuable 
contributions of slides have already been received. A first-class 
microscope stand, to be placed in the Society’s room, has been or- 
dered, and members belonging to the Section will have the privilege 
of using it for any special branch of investigation for which their 
own means might prove inadequate. During the session the following 
papers have been read :—On the Action of Alkali on Wood Fibres, 
by Mr. G. D. Hirst; The Starch of the Macrozamin spiralis, Dr. Mil- 
ford ; On Exostosis of the Human Tooth, Mr. H. Paterson ; Note ona 
Species of Chelifer, Mr. G. D. Hirst; On two Species of Insectivorous 
Plants indigenous to the Colony, Mr. J. N. C. Colyer; The Milky 
Juice of the Climbing Fig, Mr. H. J. Brown. 
San Francisco Microscopican Soctery. 
The regular meeting of the San Franciseo Microscopical Society 
was held January 4. 
The Society will soon have in its cabinet a complete series of 
Professor H. L. Smith’s diatom slides, including the five “centuries” 
issued by him, which will be a valuable acquisition. 
The feature of the evening was a lecture by Dr. Gustaf Hisen, 
Professor of Zoology, University of Upsala, Sweden, one of the 
Society’s corresponding members, who called attention to a collection 
of worms of the family Enchytreide, order Oligocheta, sent to him by 
the eminent Arctic explorer, Professor A. E. Nordenskiold, in Sweden. 
The worms were collected during the last Swedish expedition to 
Siberia and Nova Zembla, and especially from the neighbourhood of 
the river Jenissej. Dr. Eisen exhibited some twenty plates of draw- 
ings, containing about one hundred and fifty different figures of the 
various organs of said worms, and illustrated his descriptions by 
various microscopical slides. The principal points of interest were 
the following: 
The collection contained about eighteen species, or perhaps more, 
as the whole of the material was not as yet worked up. Of those 
species, none were previously known or elsewhere described. From 
Germany three or four species of the same genus have been suffi- 
ciently well described to be identified, but none of them have been 
identified with any in the collection from Siberia. 
In the course of his remarks, Dr. Eisen stated that the inner 
organs of said worms differed very much in size and shape, and fur- 
nished the only characteristics by which the species could be distin- 
guished from each other, as no external characters of sufficient value 
existed. One of the best characteristics is furnished by the size and 
shape of the nervous system, and especially by the foremost part of 
the supra-cesophagial ganglion or brain. By studying the organiza- 
tion of the different species, one could guess at or even form an idea 
of the development of the whole genus. For instance: the brain of 
said worms must originally have consisted of only a slight swelling 
of the ventral ganglia or nerves, of which the two parts had not as 
