REPORTS. 811 
BIRMINGHAM NAILURAL HISTORY AND MICROSCOPICAL 
SOCIETY.—Microscorican GrneraL Menrine.—October 2ist.—Mr. A. W. 
- Wills read a very interesting paper on the structure and life-history cf Volvox 
globator, illustrated by beautifully executed coloured diagrams and specimens in 
the microscope. Hedescribed at length the gonidia, which stud the surface of 
the globe, the network which connects them together superficially, and the 
primordial utricle beneath, in which they are imbedded, each gonidium being 
provided with two cilia projecting through orifices in the latter. He next 
described the asexual reproduction of Volvox, when a single gonidium here 
and there enlarges and sub-divides continuously until it becomes a spherical 
mass of green cells, closely appressed to one another so as to be roughly 
hexagonal, but subsequently increasing the space between them until the 
whole forms a perfect Volvow sphere like the original, and a little before 
reaching maturity bursts from the parent sphere through an orifice, rather 
smaller than itself, formed at the north pole of its axis of revolution. This 
process may be repeated through many generations, but at length atrue sexual 
method of reproduction occurs, a true spore being formed by the union of two 
gonidia, supposed to have the properties of male and female elements. This 
spore remains dormant through the winter, and develops into a fresh Volvoz 
by sub-division in the following spring, but Mr. Wills had never seen this 
take place. He suid that some observers were of opinion that the male and 
female gonidia occurred in the same sphere, others in different ones. Probably 
both may happen. He had not been able in every case to verify the results 
of Williamson, Busk, ard others; and in some few respects his observations 
differed from theirs. |GnonoGican Srcrron.—October 28th—Mr. Montagu 
Browne exhibited a specimen of the Blue Shark, (Squalus glaucus,) captured 
near Great Yarmouth, t3/t. in length, and weighing nearly half aton. Mr.R. H. 
Burman exhibited a pebble of quartz from the drift near Walsall, containing 
what appeared to be a flake of gold. Mr. J. W.Cutton sent some specimens of 
Manganese and the rocks in which the veins occur at Barmouth. Mr. T. H. Waller 
exhibited sections of opalised wood, |from California. Mr. Watson exhibited dog- 
tooth and fluor spar, toadstone and bitumen, from Castleton, Derbyshire. Mr. J. 
Morley presented to the society, on behalf of Mr. Tressider, of Falmouth, some 
rock specimens from West Cornwall. Mr. R. H. Burman read an interesting 
paper on the geology of Falmouth and neighbourhood, illustrated by specimens 
of the slates, sandstones, granite, and serpentine of the district. GrmnrraL 
Meretinc.—November 4th. Mr. Thos. Bolton exhibited Ophrydium versatile, 
from Walsall, anda number of Rotifers. Mr. J. F. Goode exhibited a female 
Diaptomus castor, with spermatic tube attached to the-operculum vulve. Mr. 
W. H. Joues exhibited living specimens of Ophiocoma neglecta,which had been kept 
in artificial sea-water for three months. - Mr. W. G. Blatch read an interesting 
paper on entomological work in winter, showing the fallacy of the popular notion 
that insects are only to be found in summer, by describing the results of an 
afternoou’s hunt in Sutto. Park, and the successful results of the various modes 
adopted for procuring insects. At the conclusion of the paper, a discussion took 
place, in which Fratilein Lauprecht and Messrs. J. Morley, J. E. Bagnall, J. F. 
Goode, H. E. Forrest, aud others took part. The discussion drifted away from 
the subject of the paper to that of ‘‘ garden pests,” and elicited from Mr. Blatch 
& promise to give the society, at some future time, a paper on two of the 
commonest of these, the larve of the Sawfly and the Magpie Moth. 
Brionocicat Section.—November 11th.—Mr. J. E. Bagnall exhibited Leueobrywm 
glaucum, in fruit, from Massachusetts; and the Protonemaof an Hepatica, 
probably Pellia epiphylla, shewing peculiar stalked bodies arising from it, 
described by Luerssen as “ brood buds” (Brntknospe.) Mr. J. F. Goode exhibited 
ova of an Entozoon from the intestinal canal of a sprat. Mr. H. W. Jones exhibited 
Callionymus lyra, the yellow scalpin, found amongst a lot of sprats in the fish 
market; and living specimens of a species of prawn, Palemon varians. Mr. 
A. W. Wills exhibited Cylindrospermum humicola, a minute Alga belonging to the 
order Oscillatoriacee ; and zygospores of Spirogyra, in various stages of germina- 
tion. M.G.8. Tyeread his report on the Mollusca taken by members of the 
Society during the recent excursion to Falmouth, from which it appears that the 
total number of species taken was sixty-three, but that from the absence from 
_ among the party of any experienced conchologist many species were unrepresented 
which peer untedily would have rewarded a more systematic examination of the 
ground, 
