lYO 



THE AMERICAN MONTHLY 



[September, 



concealed, with central orifice. Spores 

 compound, oozing in a minute 

 pustule. 



Blastesis trtdens, new species. — 

 Spots scattered, circular, black, 

 pierced by the oozing mass of spores ; 

 spores unisiptate, fiddle-shaped, hya- 

 line, the upper one furnished with a 

 long, straight or flexuous seta, a pair 

 of smaller cells budding out, one from 

 either side of the deep constriction of 

 the septum, each also furnished with 

 a long seta ; nuclei large ; pedicels 

 fugacious, short or wanting. Autumn. 



The above generic description does 

 not distinguish the genus from many 

 others of similar character. The fun- 

 gus on the pear usually appears as soon 

 as the leaves are fully developed, on 

 the upper side exclusively, and some- 

 times exhausts the leaf so that it drops 

 off and dies, and in one case caused 

 the death of an Arbre courbe tree by 

 repeated defoliation. Usually, how- 

 ever, it seems to disappear about 

 July, and is not again seen during the 

 season. 



The Montreal Microscopical Club 

 extended an invitation to the section 

 of Histology and Microscopy to at- 

 tend a meeting of the Club at the 

 building of the Natural History Soci- 

 ety, on Monday evening, August 28th. 

 The members of the Club proposed 

 to give " a practical demonstration of 

 various modes of illumination." Sev- 

 eral pieces of home-made apparatus 

 were exhibited by Mr. Miller, among 

 them a spot-lens with a movable stop, 

 and a Kelner eye-piece arranged with 

 a revolving diaphragm for use as a 

 condenser. Dr. Baker, the Secretary, 

 made some demonstrations to show 

 the value of ground glass to modify 

 the light on certain objects. Dr. 

 George Wilkins, of Bishop's college, 

 exhibited a fine lot of Zeiss' micro- 

 scopes and accessories, and a form of 

 freezing microtome which had given 

 him excellent results. 



Dr. B. W. Carpenter was invited to 

 address the meeting, and he spoke 

 for some time on the subject of mi- 

 croscopes, and then gave an account 



of studies on the Eozoon ca?iadense, 

 after which he exhibited some fine 

 specimens of that structure, under 

 microscopes. 



Mr. L. R. Sexton was present with 

 some of Mr. Gundlach's latest work, 

 but, unfortunately, most of the time 

 he was too ill to exhibit it. We had 

 the pleasure of meeting there Mr. 

 Carl Lomb, who had with him a fine 

 lot of apparatus from the Bausch & 

 Lomb Optical Co. We were greatly 

 pleased v.'ith the new large stand of 

 those makers, and intend to illustrate 

 it soon in these columns. 



Tie American Society of Miero- 

 scopists. 



The fifth annual meeting of this 

 Society was convened at Elmira, N. 

 Y., on the 15th day of August, 1882. 

 At half-past two o'clock Dr. S. O. 

 Gleason, the President of the Elmira 

 Society, opened the proceedings by 

 an informal address of welcome to the 

 members assembled. Dr. George E. 

 Blackham, the President of the Ameri- 

 can Society of Microscopists, replied 

 to this address, and, after declaring 

 the meeting duly opened, he present- 

 ed his annual report, as President. 

 We make the following abstracts 

 from the report : — 



THE president's REPORT. 

 % * * ******** 



" When I was honored by election 

 to the presidency of this Society at 

 Columbus, O., last August, it was 

 quite apparent that a crisis had been 

 reached which demanded prompt 

 and energetic action, and justified 

 some departures from conventional 

 methods. 



" My first official act was to call a 

 meeting of the Executive Committee 

 at the house of the Secretary, Pro- 

 fessor Kellicott, in Buffalo ; the next 

 was to issue a circular to members, 

 giving a list of the newly-elected 

 officers and their addresses, and offer- 

 ing some suggestions as to prepara- 

 tions for the present meeting. I pre- 



