1864. | Microscopy. 483 
rejecting all but type specimens, in which, especially those relating to 
the early days of the science, the Society is very rich. 
These remarks have occurred to us from reading the statement 
respecting the present unsatisfactory condition of the Collection of 
British Rocks and Fossils, and contrasting it with the really useful 
manner, in which, thanks to the late Mr. Horner, their foreign 
specimens are now arranged. 
VII. MICROSCOPY. 
(Including the Proceedings of the Microscopical Society.) 
Tur immense field of research which is open to the microscopical 
worker is daily entered upon by fresh labourers. The journals of 
Natural Science throughout Europe and America teem with new dis- 
coveries and new details of knowledge obtained by the use of this 
instrument. The length of our Chronicles, however, compels us to 
postpone many interesting facts to a future number, and we must con- 
tent ourselves chiefly with a brief record of what is passing at home 
in accordance with the limited space at our disposal. 
Professor Allman has recently shown that certain parts of the 
organisms of the Hydroida consist of Amcebiform protoplasm, and that 
pseudopodia in every way comparable to the pseudopodia of the 
Ameebe are emitted from these masses. The singular bodies known 
as “nematophores,” which are produced as buds at definite spots upon 
the hydrosoma of the Plumulariade, and contain clusters of large 
thread-cells, appear to consist of a granular protoplasm similar to that 
composing the Amcebzee. When examined in a trough of sea-water 
under the microscope, this mass of protoplasm may be seen to slowly 
elongate itself into variously-shaped processes, exactly like the pseudo- 
podium of an Amceba. This occurs more particularly in Antennularia 
antennina. 
Professor H. Karsten has been renewing his researches on the 
development and structure of the Vegetable Cell. His very lengthy 
and elaborate paper, containing as it does an interesting notice of 
original observations on this subject, has been translated in the‘ Annals 
and Magazine of Natural History’ for March and April. 
The microscope, when applied to investigating the minute anatomy 
of the smaller forms of insect life, is sure to be productive of new and 
interesting facts; and it is, indeed, much to be desired that we had 
more observations of this nature on record. Dr. Leonard Landois has 
published a very complete monograph of the anatomy of Ptharius 
inguinalis, in which the minutest details of its structure and anatomy 
have been followed out with great care and highly interesting results. 
The blood of insects is one of those fluids among the invertebrate 
animals about which so much remains to be learned. Like the blood 
of vertebrate animals, it is corpusculated, and contains much mineral 
