The Microscope. 275 



THE SAN FRANCISCO MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 



A WELL-ATTENDED meeting of the San Francisco Microscop- 

 "*■ ical Society was held June 8, 1887, at its rooms 1 20, Sutter 



street, President Wickson in the Chair. 



The committee having in charge the late reception submitted its 

 reports, showing said occasion to have been the most successful affair 

 of the kind ever held on this coast, not only in extent but also in 

 <juality of instruments and of objects shown. 



An ingenious device, called the " Quimby Mounting Cabinet," 

 was received for inspection from the society's indefatigable corres- 

 ponding member, E. H. Griffith. Its purpose is to facilitate the 

 illumination of objects by transmitted light, during the process of 

 mounting, and this object is very satisfactorily attained by the 

 apparatus referred to, both by daylight and artificial light. 



Dr. Selfridge brought a sample of the Oakland water supply, 

 which upon examination was found to contain large numbers of the 

 interesting infusorian, ceratium longicorne. Some four years ago 

 the w^ater supply of this city contained enormous numbers of the 

 same little organisms. 



Mr. Wickson exhibited some eggs and insects found upon an 

 apple tree by Dr. Edward Gray, of Benicia, and sent by him to the 

 society for determination. Mr. Wickson remarked that it would be 

 difficult to identify a species by the egg and newly -hatched larvae 

 alone, unless one is veiy familiar with the forms. He said, however, 

 that the insect was of the heteroptera, a sub- order of division 

 of the hemiptera, in which one pair of wings is thin and mem- 

 branous and the other partly thickened and leathery. The 

 heteroptera are divided into twelve families and the specimen sent 

 probably belongs to the scutelleridce, a family characterized in part 

 by the size of the shield it bears upon its back. The larvae shown 

 had neither wings nor shield; these parts appear later in theprogi'ess 

 of the insect. The eggs shown were strikingly beautiful. They 

 were oval in shape, attached to the bark by one end, while the upper 

 end was either open — if the insect had hatched out — or still closed 

 with its cap-like cover, if the larvse had not appeared. The eggs are 

 of pearly hue and had the appearance of frosted glass-ware. In the 

 mouths of the eggs from which the larvae had hatched there was 

 to be seen the following peculiar arrangement, described by Kirby 

 and Spence: "The egg of a Pentatoma is furnished not only with 

 a convex lid, but with a lever of a horny texture, and in the form of 



