&. 
TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 119 
the preceding Sunday, and which was, indeed, his principal reason for again appear- 
ing before them. The communication of the Bishop was to this effect :—*‘‘ The 
parish of Arncliffe, near Skipton, in Yorkshire, situated in a very wild part of the 
county, and inhabited by a wild and lawless tenantry, had been for many years with- 
out a resident clergyman, the living being a very poor one—not above £30 a year. 
The present incumbent, the Rev. Mr. Boyd, determined, however, to set himself 
down among them and to use his utmost exertions in bettering their wretched con- 
dition. To this end he surrounded his house with a fine garden, well-stocked with 
lovely flowers, and induced his peasantry-—but with great reluctance—to come in 
one by one to see and admire his flowers, and to take them home and cultivate them. 
Now for the first time they had light in their dwellings, and ultimately, through the 
kind and constant personal care which was bestowed upon them, have become the 
most contented and happy set of villagers in all Yorkshire.”’ 
On the Epidermal Cells of the Petals of Plants. By Turren WEst. 
The author, in working on microscopic subjects, generally had his attention arrested 
by that well-known object the petal of the geranium, and being unable to recocilen 
its appearance with the descriptions found in books, was led to the investigations 
now communicated to the Section. 
After detailing his observations on the epidermis of the petals and the hairs of a 
variety of plants, he came to the following conclusions :—1. The prolongation of the 
outer cell-wall of the cuticle of petals into mammillary protuberances is a usual con- 
dition ; such elevations being, with rare exceptions, most marked on the iliner sur- 
face, and being hairs in a more or less rudimentary condition. 2. That the markings 
on the parts here named (which may be divided into two kinds, lines and dots, 
though examples of an intermediate nature occur) are both caused by corrugation 
of the cell-wall, and not by external secondary deposit upon it. 
ZooLoey. 
On the Reproductive Organs of Sertularia tamarisca. 
By Professor Attman, M.D., F.RS. 
Tue author called attention to the fact, that Serfularia tamarisca, which, like most 
of the Hydroid Radiata, is strictly dicecious, presents the further remarkable cha- 
racter of having its male and female gonophores (generative vesicles) totally different 
in form,—an important fact, as regards the zoographical characterization of the 
species. 
The male gonophores appear to be those figured by Ellis in his description of this 
species; they are compressed, somewhat obcordate bodies, with a short terminal 
tubular aperture. 
The female gonophores are far less simple in form; they are oval for about the 
proximal half of their length, and then become trihedral with the sides diverging 
upwards, while the whole is terminated by a three-sided pyramid. The sides of the 
pyramid are cut into two or three short teeth along their edges, and each of their 
basal angles is prolonged into a short spine. 
The trihedral portion, with its pyramidal summit, is formed of three leaflets, 
which merely touch one another by their edges without adhering, so that they may 
be easily separated by the dissecting needle. They consist of the same chitinous 
material as that which invests the rest of the gonophore, formed doubtless originally 
on the surface of an ectodermal lamina. 
The male gonophore is traversed by a fleshy axis (blastostyle), which gives origin 
to one or more sporosacs containing the spermatogenous tissue surrounding a well- 
developed spadix*. The spermatozoa have an elongated body of a cylindrical form, 
with a long caudal filament. : 
* The author proposed the term spadix to indicate the diverticulum from thé common 
eavity of the ccenosarc, which in most of the Hydroid Zoophytes extends into the centre of 
the sporosae, and round which the generative elements (ova or spermatozoa) are developed. 
