280 Dr. W. Baird on new species of Entomosiracous Crustacea. 



The question of the existence of a corpusculated fluid in the 

 Actinia need hardly be discussed. The corpuscles have been 

 too frequently observed to leave room for any doubt of their 

 existence. I have never failed in discovering them when I have 

 used a power of 450 diameters ; and when the fluid was taken 

 from the body of a polype placed during three days in well- 

 filtered sea-water, the result was only in a slight degree less 

 decisive — the corpuscles were not quite so abundant. 



At present I can say but little on the albuminous character of 

 the chylaqueous fluid. Experiments on the subject can be satis- 

 factorily carried on only at the sea- side, where there are plenty of 

 healthy polypes to cut up without running the risk of destroying 

 old favourites. On the single occasion when I boiled some quan- 

 tity of the fluid, milkiness was produced ; but at a later period, 

 when small drops taken from other animals were tested with 

 nitric acid, I could not be sure that a change of colour took 

 place in every case. The experiments were made on animals that 

 had been kept both in natural and filtered sea-water; but test- 

 ing the character of a minute drop of fluid is an operation so 

 delicate and novel to me, that I hesitate to give an opinion from 

 the results I then obtained. 



It must be regretted that Mr. Lewes is so positive in his con- 

 clusions from what certainly look like hasty experiments ; and 

 in questioning their soundness I am justified by the author 

 himself when he tells us, at p. 261, " We see the necessity of a 

 cultivated caution in the acceptance of statements in matters 

 so complex as those of biology." 



I remain, Gentlemen, 

 Yours very truly, 



E. VV. H. Holdsworth. 



26 Osnaburgh Street, Sept. 1859. 



XXX. — Description of several Species of Entomostracotis C?'us- 

 tacea from Jerusalem. By W. Baird, M.D., F.L.S. 



[With two Plates.] 



In the month of July 1858, Edward Atkinson, Esq., a gentle- 

 man attached as surgeon to the consulate at Jerusalem, and 

 who has resided in that city for some time, sent a quantity of 

 dried mud from the pool of Gihon in Jerusalem to Mr. Denny 

 at Leeds. By the kindness of this latter gentleman, I had a 

 supply of this forwarded to me, which Mr. Denny states had 

 been in all probability in a dry state for some months before it 

 was despatched. It reached Leeds in the end of August, and 

 the small parcel containing a supply reached me at the 



