Zoological Society. 221 



collodion began to fade in thirty-six hours, and many were quite 

 dead in three days ; whilst the flowers merely placed in water in the 

 ordinary manner remained fresh and healthy. Those that faded 

 soonest were Reseda odorata and Trojpceolum majus, and those which 

 were least affected were Tagetes erecta and Senecio erubescens. 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



January 13, 1852. — W. Yarrell, Esq., in the Chair. 



The following papers were read : — 



1 . Monograph of the Family Apodid^e, a Family of Crus- 

 taceans BELONGING TO THE DIVISION EnTOMOSTRACA ; 

 WITH A DESCRIPTION OF A NEW SPECIES OF APTJS, AND TWO 

 SPECIES OF OSTRACODA BELONGING TO THE GENUS CyPRIS. 



By W. Baird, M.D., F.L.S. etc. 



In drawing up this communication, one of the objects I had in view 

 was to call the attention of the members of this Society to a group 

 of animals which must be very numerous, especially in warm climates, 

 but which nevertheless have been but little attended to. The ani- 

 mals to which I propose directing yovir attention belong to that very 

 interesting division of the great class Crustacea, called Entomos- 

 traca. The chief interest attached to these creatures, most of 

 which are very small, is derived from watching their gambols in 

 their native element, and examining by the aid of the microscope the 

 wonderful beauty of their various organs, especially their organs of 

 motion and breathing. Unfortunately few naturalists, comparatively 

 speaking, have paid much attention to them, and collectors of objects 

 of Natural History have generally, perhaps from their minuteness, 

 overlooked them almost entirely. Those however who have watched 

 these Uttle creatures, whether sporting in the freshwater ponds and 

 lakes of the interior, or illuming the bosom of the ocean with their 

 brilliant phosphorescent light, have not failed to be struck >vith the 

 beauty and elegance of their forms, — a beauty and elegance which it 

 is difficult to describe, and the attempt to do which has caused the 

 grave naturalist Otho Fredericus Miiller involuntarily to rise into the 

 language of poetry. 



The largest species of Entomostraca belong to the order Phyllo- 

 poda, and the beauty of their movements through the water and the 

 symmetry of their various organs of motion are truly exquisite. 

 The family Apodidce contains the largest individuals, though as yet 

 the number of species described is not great. One species of the 

 family was known to Linnaeus, who mentions, in the first edition of 

 his 'Fauna Suecica' (1746), having seen a specimen in 1728 at the 

 house of a naturalist in London, who told him he had received it 

 from Prussia. Jacob Frisch * had, pre^aously to the publication of 

 the * Fauna Suecica,' made known and figured a species, specimens of 

 which he had received from Klein, then at Dantzic, who had fovmd it 

 in East Prussia. Specimens of this species were sent soon afterwards 



* Insecten in Deutschland, 1 732. 



