278 PEOCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 



A vote of thanks was then given to Mr. Wenham. 



A paper was read from Dr. Anthony, F.R.M.S., containing further 

 observations on battledore scales of butterflies. 



Mr. Wenham said some of the scales he had examined were re- 

 markable for their thickness. They appeared to have an internal 

 structure, which led him to conclude that there was sometliing more 

 than inflection which kept those scales in form. He should much like 

 to know how they were situated. Sometimes they stood up like hairs 

 on the surface of the scale. 



Mr. Mclntire said, in the scale which Dr. Anthony had figured, 

 and w^hich was then under the microscoj)e, the little tubercular bodies 

 were unmistakable. He was inclined to think that in these particular 

 scales they lay between the membranes ; but of their i^articular func- 

 tions he could not j)ossibly express any ojiinion. In one or two of the 

 scales under notice, when pressure had caused the tubercles to lie on 

 one side, the dome-shaped top of the tubercles and the base and the 

 neck could be distinguished. On the other battledore scales he was 

 certain they were there also, but whether inside or outside the mem- 

 brane he could not be certain. In Alexis they seemed to be definite 

 elevations on the inner surface of the scale (that is, on the membrane 

 next the wing of the insect). He did not think any elevations were 

 to be found on t!;e exterior surface. He had never examined the 

 battledore scales during the life of the insect, but had never expe- 

 rienced any difiiculty in examining them in situ on a dried wing as 

 oijaque or transparent objects. 



Mr. Slack said he had examined a great many of these battledore 

 scales with which he had been supplied by Dr. Anthony and by Messrs. 

 Mclntire and Wonfor, and he was disposed to think that the view held 

 by Mr. Wenham respecting their structure was substantially correct. 

 He had tried the scales in all manner of ways, looking at them under 

 glass, and again as uncovered objects, and under each condition they 

 presented most vexatious difficulties. They seemed to him to be bags, 

 and in dealing with them the ordinary modes of illumination utterly 

 failed. With a great many objects that really presented elevations 

 there was no difiiculty in examining them by means of unilateral light, 

 and ascertaining what the true structure was ; but directly this mode 

 of illumination was applied to these objects, their whole ajipearance 

 became confused. If illumination was efiected by a small central 

 pencil of light, such a plan would doubtless facilitate getting certain 

 effects, but the total absence of shadow left the observer in consider- 

 able doubt. It moreover placed him somewhat in the jjosition of 

 looking down ujwn a small object so as to produce much foreshorten- 

 ing He had once tried some of the scales entirely imcovered, and he 

 came to the conclusion that uj)on those were to be seen little bumjis. 

 If you focus down with the fine adjustment, uiwn these battledore 

 scales the first thing seen was the outline of a bump on the upper sur- 

 face of the scale, and he believed that on the membrane below 

 was a similar bump. Mr. Wenham had noticed something like a 

 columnar form, and if you imagined that these two membranes, 

 the upper and lower, are sei)arated by little hollow pillars, rounded 



