(JDO PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY. 



logue of tho various forms of life to be found there, and as the pond 

 was almost within a stone's throw of where he lived, he had promised 

 to do so in tho course of this summer. But to his great dismay 

 tho Metropolitan Board of Works, who had taken over the manage- 

 ment of some of the parks, had carted rubbish into these ponds, with the 

 idea of improving them, but of course with the result of destroying them. 

 Two or three years ago the Corporation of London began the same 

 process at Epping Forest, with the object of trying to make it pretty ; 

 a deputation waited upon them on the subject, and succeeded in pre- 

 serving something. As regarded tho pond in Victoria Park, it was 

 especially to be regretted on account of the great variety of forms whicli 

 had been thus destroyed. 



Mr. Ingpen said he could quite confirm all that Mr. Badcock had 

 said bv his own experience of the similar doings of the Board on 

 Wimbledon Common and Putney Heath, where the old ponds had been 

 completely spoilt. In some instances a pond of some years' standing 

 had found its natural level, but by cutting a trench from the pond not 

 only had it been spoilt, but the neighbouring ground had been converted 

 into a quagmire. 



Mr. Crisp called attention to two slides which had been sent up by 

 Dr. Peter Yates, of Bolton Infirmary, and which were exhibited under 

 Microscopes in the room. They consisted of thin transverse sections cut 

 with a Cambridge microtome of Sycon ciliatum, a calcareous sponge sur- 

 rounded by a siliceous sponge, Isodicti/a varians — a very curious and rather 

 abnormal condition. Also sections of Sycon ciliatum cut longitudinally, 

 showing ova, &c., but especially noticeable for the fine specimens of 

 entomostracans which back to back filled up the cloacal cavity within the 

 Sycon. These entomostracans do occasionally find shelter within the 

 Sycon, but these seem so large that it was suggested they had grown 

 with the sponge's growth. The slides were mounted by Dr. Yates from 

 specimens gathered in Jersey by Mr. George Swainson, F.L.S. Sarcode 

 stained blue-black. 



Professor Stewart said he had looked at these specimens, but could 

 scarcely reconcile the appearance with ordinary facts, because where, as 

 on the Devonshire coast, they constantly found sponges of various sorts 

 growing up together, they found that as a rule they stopped short as 

 soon as they touched, and there was nothing like union between them. 

 In one of the specimens shown a siliceous sponge had apparently com- 

 pletely surrounded a calcareous one, without seeming to destroy it. He 

 shoiild very much like to know how it happened that the sarcode of the 

 inner sponge seemed to be in such a well-nourished and healthy condition. 

 By means of drawings on the board he pointed out the difficulty of 

 understanding how the process by which the currents of water were 

 drawn into and expelled from the living sponge, by means of which it 

 supplied itself with necessary nourishment, could be carried on if tho 

 sponge were entirely invested by the wall of siliceous material. The 

 other slide showing entomostraca inclosed in the sponge was a matter of 

 comparatively common occurrence. It was well known that Crustacea 

 were often found inside Eu]^)lectella, and this was so frequently the 

 case that the Spaniards thought that the Euplectella was something 

 which had been spun by the crustacean. In the Hyalonema from Japan, 

 the same kind of thing occurred, and they hardly ever obtained specimens 



