LIVERPOOL MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 85 
or to a sub-kingdom, Molluscoida. This latter view is that adopted 
by most English naturalists. ‘The main reason for this view is 
the possession of the tentacles, which are g7//-Zke in function. 
The possession of gills is an essentially molluscan feature, and the 
gills of the mollusca correspond in all essential particulars with the 
tentacular corona. 
There are 235 species of Polyzoa found on the British coasts. 
The Continental Zoologists prefer to use the name Bryozoa, a 
name which was first applied to them by Ehrenberg. The 
English agree, however, to keep the term Polyzoa, which is the 
oldest name — having first appeared in Thomson’s Researches, 
published in 1830, the other term not appearing till 1831. 
LIVERPOOL, MICROSCOFPICAL, SOCIETY: 
T the fourteenth annual meeting of the Microscopical Society 
of Liverpool, held in the Royal Institution, Colquitt-street, 
Mr. Frank T. Paul, F.R.C.S., was elected president of the society 
for the year 1883 in succession to Mr. W. H. Weightman, whose 
term of office had expired. 
At the outset of his inaugural address the new President said— 
With a roll of nearly 200 members, with microscopes of the most 
perfect description amongst us in plenty, with long winter evenings 
for some months to come, and with material of all kinds abounding, 
I consider that our opportunities are enormous, and we only need 
that some happy spirit of enthusiasm should be diffused amongst 
us to show that our capabilities are no less. With us the micro- 
scope is a study rather than a recreation—a study, to be sure, so 
pleasant that we regard it in the light of a recreation, but still so 
scientific that we must devote our best energies to it. I do not 
wish to speak too strongly, but I think that in point of usefulness, 
in point of elevating and increasing the scope of our minds, it 
would be better for a society such as this never to have existed at 
all than to consist of members who regard the microscope as a 
scientific toy. With the public generally it is so, and it is well 
enough that it should be so; but we, by forming ourselves into a 
society, make, I consider, a ” profession of special interest in the 
subject with which it deals, and, therefore, we ought to regard it as 
incumbent upon us to do something—indeed, as much as in us 
lies—to further it. And of all the scientific studies, from the 
simplest to the most abstruse, there is none that is more 
