The Microscope. 109 



The members reported the results of their search for trichinse. 

 E. J. Nitschmann had examined sixteen rats and twenty-three 

 specimens of pork, but failed to find trichinae. J. C. Falk was more 

 fortunate and found one rat with a diaphragm full of trichinae. 

 Other members reported on rats, rabbits, squirrels and hogs, but 

 found no trichinae. One medical student had examined specimens 

 from thirteen cadavers without finding trichinae. 



Prof. H. M. Whelpley made a few remarks about trichinae, and 

 the methods of examining pork for them. 



BUFFALO MICROSCOPICAL CLUB. 



A T the meeting held Jan. 10th, the small attendance, due to the 

 -*■ -^ storm, was not an index to the interest exhibited ; the meet- 

 ing merely became more conversational in its tone. 



Mr. Henry Mills presented the club with a copy of Pott's 

 "Fresh Water Sponges," for which a vote of thanks was unanimously 

 extended. 



The committee on reply to Prof. Minot's article in " Science " 

 asked further time, as they were making investigations with lenses. 

 It was stated that the " short German model," to which Dr. Minot 

 pinned his faith, was being discarded in almost all the later makes of 

 stand. Dr. Smith said they had compared a ^ of Zeiss with a |- of 

 Spencer and of Gundlach and a ^ of Bausch & Lomb. That when 

 the Zeiss lens was used with the Zeiss latest eyepieces the results 

 were somewhat the better ; the Zeiss eyepieces were superior to any 

 ever seen by the committee. It was due to American lenses to say 

 that the ones of home make, used in the comparison, were not of the 

 latest pattern, but were taken as being of the same focal length as the 

 Zeiss, which was of the latest and finest that money could purchase. 



Dr. Kellicott read Mr. Mills' paper, " Notes on Sponges." 



Mr. Mills said he had searched Dakota for sponges last summer, 

 and that his search was akin to looking for snakes in Ireland. Yet 

 the season's work was far from naught. He had found, in August, 

 a good specimen of Myenia Crateriformis which had two peculiarities 

 specially significant. 1st. In the cratu terminating even with the 

 surface of the globular statoblast. 2nd. The birotulates of the stato- 

 blasts lean toward and across each other. In November he received 

 from Mr. Twitchell a specimen found in the Ohio River, which has 

 proven entirely new. It resembles the Myenia plumosa, but diflPers 

 in having two distinct kinds of birotulate spicula in the walls of the 



