"jou'JalMayM'lo''] PKOCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 261 



day of meeting should be altered from the second to the first Wednes- 

 day in each month, and in accordance with this suggestion, notice 

 was given of a motion at the next meeting of the Society, that the 

 20th bye-law should be so amended as to enable the Council to carry 

 out the alteration. 



Mr. Slack said that in consequence of the want of time at the pre- 

 vious meeting, there had been no j)roper discussion of the papers by Mr. 

 Barrett " On a New Stentor " and Dr. Pigott " On High-Power Defi- 

 nition." He thought it undesirable that Mr. Barrett's j)aper should 

 pass without some protest being made against the creature he had 

 described being called a Stentor. The animal was undoubtedly an 

 interesting object, but the description given of it did not justify the 

 appellation bestowed iipon it. Mr. Barrett says, " There were no 

 cilia over the body ; but standing at right angles to the body, and at 

 equal distances from each other, there were long fine haii-s." Stentors, 

 according to the best authorities on the subject, liad two lands of cilia 

 on their bodies. Stein, in his arrangement of Infusoria, divides the 

 ciliata into Holotrichia, cilia of one character, and Heterotrichia, cilia 

 of difterent characters. Stentors belonged to the latter, having small 

 cilia thickly covering the body ; and larger cilia forming an oral 

 wreath. A creature which had no cilia on its body was a wide de- 

 parture from the Stentors recognized by all the authorities. True 

 Stentors had also characteristic body strij^es, but Mr. Barrett's animal 

 had no stripes. Mr. Barrett mentioned indications in his creature of a 

 nervous system said to be similar to the Polyzoa ; this woiild indicate 

 a much higher rank than a Stentor, at least as high as a Eotifer. 

 With reference to bristles on Stentors, so conspicuous in Mr. Barrett's 

 figure. Stein speaks of objects of this descrij^tion in true Stentors, 

 which were protruded from the sarcode and disappeared, leaving no 

 special mark of their entrance and exit. He siipposed them organs of 

 touch. 



Mr. T. Charters White said it might be interesting to the Fellows 

 to know that at the recent excursion of the Quekett Club to Wands- 

 worth Common, he had found large numbers of an animal similar to 

 the new Stentor described by Mr. Barrett, but inhabiting a transparent 

 case. The longitudinal bands of cilia usually seen in Stentor were 

 absent, and it had not the projecting bristles as figured in Mr. Barrett's 

 drawing. The oral disc was of the shape of the human ear, surroimded 

 by well-marked cilia. The body was granular, but with distinctly- 

 defined vacuoles filled with Desmids. It was found abundantly on 

 JRanunculus aquatilis, together with very large specimens of Stepha- 

 noceros. 



Mr. Hogg explained that the case of Mr. Barrett's Stentor had been 

 rendered opaque by the use of carmine. He had generally found the 

 case of Stentor trausiiarent, and believed that Stentors vary in appear- 

 ance at diflerent periods of the year. He had seen Stentors without 

 striations through the sarcode body ; but did not, however, regard the 

 animal described by Mr. Barrett as a Stentor. From some observa- 

 tions he (Mr. Hogg) had made of Stentors, he had observed a process 

 resembling conjugation in some of the Desmids, in which condition 



