PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 119 



Dr. Hebb read a letter from Mr. Pearce with reference to the slides 

 by Andrew Pritchard, presented to the Society. A description of these 

 slides, and also of an objective by James Smith, written by Mr. Parsons, 

 ■was read to the Meeting. 



Dr. Hebb also read the following letter from Mr. Nelson : — 

 " It may interest yon to hear that the flagella of the tubercle bacillus 

 can be seen with a dry lens. The apochromatic 4 mm. (long tube), 

 by Zeiss, and the 7a (short tube), by Leitz, both will demonstrate the 

 flagellum. There is nothing of particular interest in this of itself, but 

 there is one point worth noting, which is that it is only the bacilli stained 

 with fuchsin that will shine on a dark ground, other objects in the field 

 such as nuclei stained blue, hardly show up at all upon a dark ground. 

 Therefore, if the flagellum was, as has been said, some other object 

 stained blue and lying fortuitously against the bacillus, it never would 

 _liave been seen upon a dark ground. The image is necessarily a difficult 

 one, even shining as it does with the fuchsin in it, but unless it was an 

 integral portion of the bacillus and took the stain with it, it would be 

 perfectly invisible." 



A paper on " A Fern Fructification from the Lower Coal Measures of 

 Shore, Lancashire," was read by Mr. 1). M. S. Watson, and illustrated 

 by lantern slides. 



The President said it would be within the recollection of some of the 

 Fellows present, that in his address in January, 1905, he attempted to 

 deal with the question, " What were the Carboniferous Ferns ? " and he 

 then pointed out that many forms which were thought to be ferns were 

 not so, but were seed-bearing plants of the class now known as pterido- 

 sperms. Things had gone on much further since then, and some persons 

 might now answer the question, " What were the Carboniferous Ferns ? " 

 by saying that there were none ! If he had known of Mr. Watson's 

 specimens at the time of his address he should have brought them before 

 the Society as examples of a true fern -fructification. Our knowledge 

 bad advanced in the meantime, and it was now known that Crossotheca, 

 a synangic fructification, constituted the male organs of the pterido- 

 sperni, Lyginodendron, a discovery due to Mr. Kidston. He believed 

 there were many of these fructifications which had been regarded as 

 sporangia of ferns which were really the pollen-bearing organs of 

 pteridosperms. He was inclined to refer Miss Benson's genus Telangium 

 to Crossotheca, and to agree with her as to its belonging to some form 

 •of Lyginodendron. As regarded the example brought before them that 

 evening, he did not think from the data that it was possible to express 

 an opinion as to the group to which it really belonged. Its general 

 resemblance to Telangium had rather struck him, but after all this might 

 be only superficial. When he first saw Mr. Watson's sketches he 

 thought the specimen was a Ptychocarpus, a fructification hitherto 

 regarded as that of a Marattiaceous fern. The author, however, had 

 shown sufficient reasons for placing his specimens in a new genus. 



Professor F. W. Oliver remarked that the communication of Mr. 

 Watson's paper to the Royal Microscopical Society was appropriate, as 



