98 MICROSCOPY. 
Tur Weser Supe is a simple but useful contrivance which students 
of fresh-water life will find a most helpful addition to their appliances. 
‘* The ordinary concave slide, though better than a plain slip of glass, does 
not fulfil all the requirements of the microscopist, and with such a slide 
it is difficult to keep the object in focus except with very low powers. 
To obviate these difficulties Mr. Weber has reversed the form of the cell, 
and forms his slide as shown in the accompanying woodcut, 
Cn 5 
where A is the convex bottom of the cell, and B the thin glass cover, a 
drop of water being held between them by capillary attraction. When 
the cover is cemented down by means of a little waterproof cement the 
water cannot evaporate, and the whole arrangement forms an air-tight 
aquarium on a minute scale. The open space forms a chamber which 
retains a supply of air, and if the animal and vegetable life are properly 
balanced life may exist in one of these slides for weeks. In the woodcut 
the thickness of the slide &c., is magnified about four times.” This 
description is takenfrom the ‘“ Journalof the Royal Microscopical Society,” 
Vol. IL., p. 56, to the Editor of which we are indebted for the loan of the 
illustration, 
METEOROLOGY OF THE MIDLANDS. 
THE WEATHER OF FEBRUARY, 1879. 
BY W. JEROME HARRISON, F.G.S. 
February proved a cold and wet month, fully maintaining the severe 
character of the winter of 1878-9. Rainfall was above the average, 
but was, perhaps, not so remarkable for its amount as for its 
persistency, there being only some five days on which no rain was 
measured. Snow fell on ten or twelve days, to the depth of from 
three to six inches on the 1st and 24th. Opening with some days of frost, 
a thaw set in on the 6th which continued to the 16th. A thaw also 
marked the last day of the month. The sky was mostly overcast, and 
there were several foggy days. The barometer ruled low, with variable 
winds. At Oxford lightning was seen on the 17th, a solar halo on the 
20th, and lunar halo on the 7th. The absence of small birds was notice- 
able; at Orleton “very few blackbirds, and no thrushes, fieldfares, or 
redwings have been seen ;” at Shifnal ‘‘all the starlings (of which we 
had flocks) deserted us, a few only returning at the end of this month; 
the same with regard to throstles. Blackbirdsremained, and were saved, 
with robins, chaffinches, tits, and hedge-fauvets, by coming to be fed with 
the sparrows ;” at Coundon ‘no fieldfares or redwings seen in this 
neighbourhood since December 10th, when three were picked up dead or 
dying in this garden.” Vegetation was very backward. At Burton-on- 
Trent, hazel and willow flowered on the 22nd. At Coston Rectory the 
aconite flowered about the middle of the month. At Stroud, ‘ only three 
plants in blossom, viz., the butter-bur, hazel, and daisy.” 
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