92 
NOTES AND MEMORANDA. 
obtain general attendance from the whole country only at the time 
and place of meeting of the A. A. A.S., to say nothing of the other 
very great advantages of meeting in connection with that prominent 
organization. 
The Nutrition of the Protozoan. — Dr. Wallich, Hon. F.B.M.S., 
writes as follows to the ‘ Lancet’ (June 12) on this subject. He says: 
“ Having for fifteen years stood alone in maintaining that the law of 
nutrition which prevails in the case of the higher orders of the animal 
kingdom, and constitutes the fundamental distinction between it and 
the vegetable kingdom, fails in the case of the simplest and humblest 
creatures, whose body substance presents no trace whatever of special 
digestive apparatus, it is with no slight satisfaction that I am now able to 
state that my views on this subject have very recently been confirmed 
by evidence which seems to be incontrovei’tible. The fact is in itself 
so important and so intimately connected with the biology of deep-sea 
organisms, that it would be useless to attempt to indicate, within the 
compass of a few lines, the nature of the evidence and reasoning 
which influenced my conclusions. I must therefore content myself 
for the present with observing that in my ‘ North Atlantic Sea-bed,’ 
published in 1862, pp. 130-132, as well as in various papers on the 
Ehizopods and Protozoa generally, contributed since that period to 
other scientific periodicals, I stated the reasons which appeared to me 
to be sufficient to establish the belief that the lower rhizopods provide 
for their nutrition and growth by eliminating from the medium in 
which they live the inorganic elements that enter into the composition 
of their protoplasm. What I contend for is, not that there exists in 
nature a hard-and-fast line between the extremes of its two great 
kingdoms, but a gradual transition and overlapping from both sides ; 
and hence that the doctrine I have advanced is not the scientific 
heresy which its opponents, under the influence of foregone and, as I 
think, erroneous conclusions, have thought fit to consider it.” 
Microscopy at the Bristol Meeting of the British Association. — 
We are glad to see that Bristol is not going to be behindhand at the 
meeting of the British Association, but is determined to illustrate her 
local microscopy to the fullest. She has some men among her savants 
who are by their knowledge and work qualified in the highest degree 
to take a leading part in the discussions, and we trust they will not be 
absent. At the soiree on August 26, the Bristol Microscopical Society, 
assisted by the Naturalists’ Society and the Bath Microscopical 
Society, has undertaken to give a systematic microscopic demonstra- 
tion of the natural history of the neighbourhood ; a novel feature will 
be the number of living objects which will be exhibited. 
