148 THE MICROSCOPICAL NEWS. 
of these notes. The sketches, however, although not works of art, 
correctly represent the animals, as I saw them, and will enable my 
brother naturalists to recognise any of the animals I have so im- 
perfectly described. 
WESTERN MICROSCOPICAL CLUB. 
A NIGHT WITH “ BRASS AND GLASS.” 
- 
| Bee Western Microscopical Club met in goodly numbers on 
Monday evening last at the house of F. Crisp, Esq., LL.B., the 
well-known hon. sec. of the Royal Microscopical Society. After 
tea and coffee, the guests adjourned to the spacious fernery and 
greenhouse, where, amid the illusions of ferns, lights, rocks, and 
fountains reflected in cunningly arranged mirrors, the routine 
business of the meeting was dispatched. Thence the Club pro- 
ceeded to the museum, where lay the host’s unrivalled collection 
of microscopes and microscopical apparatus, arranged tier above 
tier, in large ebony cabinets, around the walls and in trays along 
the centre of the room. All were thrown open, so that each 
member might himself freely take out and handle anything he 
desired more closely to examine. The collection is of historical 
interest. There were single-lens microscopes, going back to un- 
recorded microscopical dates. One of the earliest compound in- 
struments with a known date was of Hooke’s make in 1650. A 
telescopic-looking monster, some four feet long, known as “Jumbo,” 
was confronted on the opposite side of the room by a minute 
though thoroughly usable microscope, of most modern construction, 
called the “ Midget,” which could boast of only four-inch height. 
There was also a curious Japanese microscope, made after an old 
Dutch model, which possessed almost all the defects that a micro- 
scope could lay claim to. In imitation of the principle of the 
“reflector” telescopes, the model upon which the largest telescopes 
have been built, a variety of forms was exhibited. 
Passing from the ancient microscopes, built, most of them, on 
the “short and stout” principle, a collection of modern instruments, 
with their slim, single tubes, challenged attention. In all forms of 
simplicity and complexity, with ingenious devices for changing eye- 
pieces and object-glasses, with wondrous mechanical stages and 
sub-stage apparatus, they fairly bewilder the spectator. In one, the 
polarizing prism, was slowly rotated by clock-work ; in another the 
analyzer was whirled round some one hundred times per minute in 
order to produce some peculiar effects of polarization. 
