PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 911 



carried on under the greatest difficulties, and much credit was due to 

 him for the indefatigable way in which he pursued them. 



The President thought the paper was a very admirable one, what- 

 ever differeuce of opinion there might be as to some of the points 

 touched upon. 



Mr. T. C. White said that he was uuder the impression that as far 

 as the attachment of the ovum to the parent was concerned, it was 

 really attached to the case. The gelatiuous envelope could hardly be 

 called a case in the sense of being a thin structure, but it was rather 

 a thick tube with solid walls, and when the creature retracted itself, 

 the portion of the tube to which the ovum was attached was carried 

 down with it. As regarded the viviparous character mentioned, he 

 had observed it in Rotifer vulgaris, aud had also noticed the fact that 

 the parent died as Mr. Kosseter described. 



Mr. Badcock having had an opportunity of previously reading the 

 paper, read some critical remarks which he had written as to the 

 question of the tube being " solid " or not. 



Mr. Beck thought that the paper was an exceedingly interesting 

 one, and after the remarks which had been made by Mr. Crisp as to 

 the circumstances under which the observations had been made, it was 

 doubly interesting. The way in which the writer had combined 

 observation with experiment, and the manner in which he described 

 the results, was, he thought, very creditable indeed. The fact of the 

 creature making its way out of the cell, not at the top but at the lower 

 end, was very interesting, for it would be natural to suppose that if 

 any injury had taken place it would have escaped in the opposite 

 direction. It occurred to him that this circumstance might afford a 

 clue as to the way in which these objects expanded. 



Mr. Michael thought that to a certain extent the question of an 

 attachment to the tube was a substantial one, but whether the case was 

 solid or tubular was more a matter of words. Pritchard could not 

 mean that a cylinder in which a creature moved up and down was 

 really " solid " ; what he meant was probably that, instead of being a 

 mere thin shell, it had a considerable thickness approaching towards 

 solidity. The draggiug down of the ovum, he thought, commenced 

 before the arms touched the tube. 



The President said it appeared to be quite clear that the tube had 

 a considerable thickness, and that the attachment or adhesion to it was 

 by the base only. With regard to the curious twisting round of the 

 animal to get out at the lower end, it should be remembered that these 

 creatures were Vermes, and that this was just the kind of thing a worm 

 would do under the circumstances. He quite agreed with Mr. Beck 

 in his remarks on the paper, and he hoped they would have more of 

 the same kind. 



Mr. Crisp made some remarks on the criticisms that had been 

 passed on the paper. 



Dr. Maddox read a paper on "Some Organisms found in the 

 Excrement of the domestic Goat and the Goose " (see p. 749). 



