288 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



has been a return to normal conditions, yet even now the socket is larger and 

 not quite the shipe of its fellow, the bone around it is swollen, and the canine tooth 

 is very different in appearance from an uninjured one, although certainly more 

 formidable to the eye and probably little less efficient for use. 



Dr. Kirtikar, in referring to Mr. Steel's paper ou the adventitious horn from the 

 ear of a goat, said that in his opinion Mr. Steel's remarks regarding its origin were 

 oorrect. The growth was of epidermal origin — arising from the layer of cells cover- 

 ing the true skin. There was a specimen of such a growth occuring in human 

 beings in the Museum of Grant Medical College. The growth was shown as 

 distinctly horny in one of Tusou's was models which adorn the College Museum - 

 Whether Tusou prepared it from an actually living specimen, or whether it was 

 merely diagramatic, he was not prepare 1 to say. It was on the back of the forearm 

 just a little above the wrist joint, and appeared to be of epidermic origin. 

 That such errors of nature have the horny element in them is undoubted. It was 

 merely a modified form of the epithelial tissue. 



Vegetable Life in Vehar Water. 



Dr. Kirtikar next showed uuder the microscope two specimens of algaa from Yehar 

 water. One of them was the Pleurococcus Pie mialis and another contained the 

 Trotoeoeous plucialis and a minute variety of Nostoc. They were both magnified 

 five hundred times. 



During the course of his observations Dr. Kirtikar remarked that the first spec ; men 

 of Pleurococcus plucialis, Fig. 4, PI. II, was obtained from the Vehar pipe in the 

 Jamsetji Jijibhai Hospital. It first appeared soon after the first fall of rain in Bombay 

 and its suburbs, and has been since seen floating as green matter in the water served 

 at the Jamsetji Hospital through the Vehar pipes. Whether the plant came from 

 the Yehar Lake itself as a fresh growth from old plants, or whether the rainfall had 

 introduced it afresh, or whether it was from the special ptye of the hospital, he was 

 not prepared to say. He had just been kindly promised by Dr. Weir, who was then 

 among the members present, that a supply of water direct from the Vehar Lake 

 would be submitted to him for a further microscopical examination, to elucidate that 

 point. The algse, Dr. Kirtikar observed, were visible to the naked eye as irregular, 

 floating green masses. Uuder the miscroscope their full structure was apparent 

 Beautiful green masses, circular, but some hexagonal by pressure, covered over with 

 a fine hyaline coating congregated in masses, hence being called " pleurococci," 

 containing gonidia, in the shape of brilliant green granular matter. The masses were 

 like ,; families " collected, and held together by a hyaline mass of cellular matter 

 distinct and irregular in shape. There was some among the individual pleurococci 

 which were like the figure eight, distinctly showing the process of multiplication by 

 fission — one cell dividing into two, each of these again sub-dividing further. Iu the 

 condition of the plant the present gonidia had not separated or escaped from the 

 teguments, so it was not possible to determine whether the gonidia were ciliated 

 or not. 



With regard to the next specimen, Fig. 5, PI. II., Dr. Kirtikar observed that he had 

 searched through the illustrations of Kutzing, the German Algologist, and through the 

 Plates recently published by Cooke; but that he had failed to find such minute 

 arrangement of cells forming the filaments of the Nostoc. The protococcus which was 

 seen in the field of the specimen was a variety of the ordinary Protococcus pluvialis but 

 the Nootoc was of a rare beauty aud structure. It did not come direct from the Vehar 



