PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 308 
information on the subject, or who may be interested in the proposed 
publication. 
PROCEEDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES. 
Linnean Society or Lonpon. 
Annual General Meeting, Wednesday, May 24, 1877.——The customary 
Address on the occasion of the Anniversary was delivered by the President, 
Prof. Allman, F.R.S. He took as his subject, “ Recent Researches among 
the Lower Sareode Organisms,” being a continuation of his Address of last 
year. He dwelt upon the important additions to our knowledge of these 
organisms due to the investigations of Archer, in our gwn country, and of 
Hertwig and Lesser, Franz Hilhard Schulze and Greeff, in Germany. The 
discovery of many new Monothalamic Rhizopods of fresh water, and the 
important additions made by the British and German investigators to 
our knowledge of their protoplasmic bodies, were brought in review before 
the meeting. These Monothalamic forms may be divided in accordance 
with the nature of their pseudopodia; in some these processes being short, 
thick, and finger-shaped (Lobosa); in others, long, slim and filiform ([ilifera). 
The former were illustrated by Hyalosphenia, with its smooth, transparent 
shell, and of Quadrula, with beautifully sculptured shell; and the latter by 
Gromia, with very long filiform reticulated pseudopodia, and by Microgromia 
socialis, which has the curious habit of forming colonies by the association 
of numerous individuals which become united to one another by the mutual 
fusion of their pseudopodia. The remarkable form of reproduction discovered 
by Hertwig in Microgromia was also described. Hertwig had shown that 
in this Rhizopod the protoplasm divides by spontaneous fission into two 
segments, one of which remains in the shell, while the other forces its way 
out, assumes an oval shape, develops instead of pseudopodia two vibratile 
flagella, and becomes a free-swimming flagellate Zoospore, capable of ulti- 
mate development into the form of the adult. The very interesting discovery 
by Haeckel, that the contents of the so-called “ yellow cells” of the Radiolaria 
become of a deep violet colour under the action of iodine, and are therefore 
mainly composed of starch, was also referred to among recent additions to 
our knowledge of the lower organisms. An account was then given of the 
remarkable and very significant researches of Messrs. Dallinger and Drys- 
dale among the so-called “ Monads”—umicroscopic organisms which become 
developed in putrefying solutions of organic matter, and which, in their 
ordinary and apparently adult state, swim about by the aid of vibratile flagella. 
These laborious and trustworthy investigators have shown that the flagellate 
Monads may acquire an amceboid condition, and move about by the aid of 
pseudopodia; that two such amceboid forms when they come in contact with 
