XIV. ABSTRACT OF PROCEEDINGS. 



THE FOLLOWING PAPERS WERE READ : 



1. "Key to Tribes and Genera of the Floridese (Red or purple 



Marine Algse)" by R. A. Bastow. 



This paper was read, and was explanatory of two large charts 

 of this group of sea-weeds, prepared by the author. 



2. "On the metamorphosis of the young form of Filaria Bancrofts 



Cobb, [Filaria sanguinis hominis, Lewis; Filaria nocturna, 

 Manson] in the body of Culex ciliaris, Linn., 'House Mosquito' 

 of Australia," by Tnos. L. Bancroft, m.b. Edin. 



In this paper the metamorphosis of Filaria nocturna in the 

 body of the mosquito is shewn to take from sixteen to twenty 

 days for its completion, instead of seven days as was thought ; 

 previous observers, endeavouring to follow Manson, were unable 

 to keep their mosquitoes alive sufficiently long; the writer dis- 

 covered a means by which mosquitoes may be kept alive in suitable 

 glass vessels for upwards of two months ; he feeds them on ripe 

 banana. He explains how it occurred that Manson saw the final 

 stage of the metamorphosis occasionally in what he thought were 

 seven days old mosquitoes ; these particular mosquitoes had 

 imbibed filariated blood weeks before the time when they were 

 captured and already contained advanced stages of the meta- 

 morphosis. Anyone may now easily verify Manson's work by 

 merely placing two or three " house mosquitoes " under the 

 mosquito net curtains of the bed in which a filarious person sleeps, 

 preferably late at night, and when the person is asleep ; the next 

 morning the mosquitoes, which have sucked blood, are transferred 

 to a large glass vessel and fed on banana, in twenty days every 

 one of them will contain actively moving filariae. 



EXHIBITS. 



1. Ferruginous geodes, one containing liquid, by Henry G. 

 Smith, f.c.s. 



2. Dr. Erdmenger's specific gravity apparatus was exhibited 

 and described by Professor Warren, m. inst. c.e., wh. so. 



