294 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 



The tlianks of the meeting were voted to Mr. Wood for his 

 interesting communication. 



Mr. Charles Stewart said he had been afforded an opportunity of 

 looking at this supposed larva, and, so close was its resemblance to 

 the Bucephalus exhibited at the last meeting, that he could not help 

 thinking if that was an entozoon this must also be something of the 

 same kind. It was so unlike the larval forms of the lamellibranchiate 

 mollusca that he thought it might after all turn out to be really a 

 parasite, and its position in the ovary would not negative this notion. 

 The resemblance between the two was really so very close that he 

 could not help thinking that the position of both in the animal kingdom 

 would prove to be the same, though, of coiirse, he did not say that it 

 was not the young of the cockle. Mr. Stewart then drew upon the 

 black-board the object exhibited by Mr. Badcock at the previous 

 meeting, and also a copy of Mr. Wood's drawing of the one he had 

 brought that evening, and pointed out the similarity between them. 



Mr. Wood said that he had never found anything else than these 

 creatures in the ovary of the cockle. 



Mr. Stewart thought it might be worth while to institute some - 

 further comparisons between the two objects in their earlier stages ; 

 he did not say, of course, that the two were really the same thing, 

 but he was quite disposed to bracket them together as being of the 

 same genus. 



Dr. Moore said that he had been for some time examining both the 

 cockle and the mussel, and had traced out the development of the cockle 

 in the same way. He believed that these objects were the larval forms 

 of the cockle, and in the marine mussel he had also traced out the 

 development. He found that these long arms consisted of striated 

 muscular tissue. 



Mr. Stewart said he had examined the arms under -j^, but had 

 foimd no trace of striated muscle — it might, however, perhaps require 

 a higher power. 



The President observed that the fact of such analogous organisms 

 having been found in so many instances as described would lead one 

 to suppose that they might be the young of the cockle instead of 

 Entozoa. 



Dr. Moore inquired what proof there was that the Bucephalus was 

 an entozoon. 



Mr. Stewart said it was considered so by some who were thought 

 to be authorities. 



Dr. Moore said he had been able to trace the rudimentary shell 

 both in the cockle and in the mussel. 



Mr. Stewart mentioned that in the last number of the ' Annals of 

 Natural History' there were a number of references to Bucephalus, and 

 perhaps they might throw some light upon it. He must say also that 

 when he first saw a drawing of Bucephalus polymorphus he fancied that 

 it might possibly be the young of some lamellibranchiate, but did not 

 think so after examining the creature itself. 



Perrya pulcherrima (Kitton) and some other new species of 

 diatoms were exhibited under one of the Society's instruments. 



