1004 PEOCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 



Pi'of. Stewart said lie was unable clearly to understand what was 

 meant by the processes of the " endoderm " as that term was generally 

 understood. 



Mr. Michael said that in Mr. Lowne's ' Anatomy and Physiology 

 of the Blow-fly ' the term was not applied in its usual sense, but 

 appeared to convey the same meaning as epiderm, and the author of 

 the paper probably used it in this way. 



Mr. H. Mills's letter was read as follows : — " In the April number of 

 the Journal I notice the article on Dr. Vejdovsky's Fresh -water 

 Sponge, Ephydatea ampMzona. In my searches for sponge last 

 autumn, I discovered three species with the same biserial arrangement 

 of the birotulates, or amphidiscs. In some sections of the statoblasts 

 three series are plainly manifest. These discoveries were made in 

 the latter part of October, 1883, and announced to the Microscopical 

 Club of this city. I send by mail small fragments of the sponges 

 which can be made into sections by imbedding in paraffin, &c. The 

 character of the water in which these were found may be of interest to 

 Dr. Marshall, whose article referring to some habits of fresh-water 

 sponge precedes that of Dr. Vejdovsky in the same journal. No. 1 

 was found in Bear Creek, Iowa, in a very gently flowing bend of the 

 serpentine stream. No. 2 was found in a branch of the Calumet 

 creek, near Chicago, where the water was apparently without motion. 

 No. 3 was found in great abundance in the slowly running bends of 

 Ischua Creek, forty-five miles east of Buffalo. In No. 1 the stato- 

 blasts are very scarce, owing, I think, to the immature state of the 

 specimen when found." * 



Mr. G. Massee's paper " Description and Life-history of a New 

 Fungus, Milowia nivea " was read (see p. 841). 



Mr. Bennett said that it was necessarily rather difficult to follow 

 a paper of that kind, which dealt so largely with hypotheses, without 

 reading it carefully when printed, but from what he had heard it 

 seemed to him that some of Mr. Massee's conclusions were not a little 

 startling. All the evidence, that he was aware of, seemed rather to 

 show that it was impossible to draw a hard and fast line between 

 sexual and non-sexual reproduction ; but although his own observations 

 would lead him to somewhat difierent conclusions from those of the 

 author of the paper, he felt it would be unfair to enter upon 

 any lengthened criticism of its contents without having previously 

 studied it. 



The President said that the paper was manifestly one of consider- 

 able interest, throwing out, as it did, some original suggestions which 

 would well repay investigation. 



* See Ana. and Mag. Nat. Hist., xiii. (1884) p. 101, where Mr. Mills's 

 discoveries are noticed by Mr. H. J. Carter, who, however, does not explicitly 

 state that Mr. Mills has discovered three series of birotulates, but mentions his 

 own observation of the same fact. 



