We all know the phosphorescent appearance of sea water when 

 it appears like liquid fire, and no doubt you are all aware this 

 is caused by minute jelly-like animalcules, and Darwin records 

 how when the vessel was on the coast of Chili, it passed 

 through bands of reddish coloured water, which when micro- 

 scopically examined, consisted of minute animalcules ; they 

 were so minute as to be invisible to the naked eye, and yet 

 they passed through many successive miles of them. How 

 inconceivable then must have been their numbers ? In parts 

 of the Arctic Ocean the water is coloured an opaque green, 

 owing to the presence of countless myriads of minute Me- 

 dusae. Scoresby calculates that in a space of two square miles 

 there would be congregated together a number, which 80,000 

 persons, counting incessantly from the creation until now, 

 would not have enumerated, though they worked at the rate 

 of one million a week ! Even man, the lord of creation, 

 is not free from a rather unpleasant redundancy of life 

 within his organs, but as this is not a very pleasant subject, 

 I will not pursue it, further than to caution you against eating 

 underdone meat, especially pork, lest you introduce the germs 

 of numerous living parasites into your internal system ! Many 

 of you saw the Singing Mouse, exhibited by one of our 

 members. This curious phenomenon is caused by spasmodic 

 breathing, due to the presence of a parasite, the Cystercus 

 fascicularis ; though really the Rodents are so birdlike in many 

 of their habits and structural character, that we might hardly 

 be surprised if they all sang, for why do birds sing } It is 

 quite a mistake to believe all birds sing, the vast majority do 

 not, and it is difficult to imagine why many of them do, or 

 how they are thereby benefited in their struggle for existence. 

 The whole subject of Parasites is a curious, if not a very 

 inviting one for investigation, so I think I cannot better 

 conclude than by a quotation from Tom Hood's humourous 

 notion on the subject : 



Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, 

 And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad, infinitum. 

 I fear I have now trespassed far too long upon your time, but 

 if I have only persuaded some of you that the pursuit of 

 Natural History is not altogether devoid of interest and 

 amusement, I feel I shall not have spoken quite in vain. 

 After a short discussion the Secretary was called upon to read 



