﻿June, 1857.] 



ELLIOTT SOCIETY. 



223 



not exhibit, in the course of its history, a cycle of changes belong- 

 ing to itself, and included in its original conception. The idea of 

 the class was, in the course of its history, modified according 

 to the laws of the development of special from synthetic types. 

 So was that of the order, and even that of the family. The indi- 

 vidual of any species was not the same in form at all periods of 

 its existence, but exhibited form-changes, which, as in the case of 

 fission, even sometimes encroached upon the notion of individu- 

 ality as we entertain it. "Why, then, should the ideas of the genus 

 and the species be the sole stationary ideas ? Why should they 

 alone be excepted from the law of development? If each of these 

 groups had a beginning and an end, why should it not have a his- 

 tory ? a progressive morphology ? Mr. McCrady thought that the 

 question considered a priori resolved itself to this: whether there 

 was anything at rest in nature ? Whether, among all the ideas of 

 the Great Morphologist, expressed in the organic world, there was 

 one which was stationary, like a crystal, and not rather living, 

 growing, teeming, like the germ of a plant or animal ? 



Member Elected. 

 James Johxsox, Esq. 



JUNE 1st, 1857. 



President L. R. Gibbes in the chair. 



Prof. McCrady remarked that he had recently had the opportu- 

 nity of making some incomplete observations on the embryology 

 of a species of Bolina found in Charleston Harbor. From these 

 observations it appeared that Bolina had not at first the singularly 

 graceful bi-lobular form which afterwards distinguished it. but 

 that it first exhibits the form of a Cydippe with very short ambu- 

 lacra, which were confined to the upper third of the body, around 

 the sense-capsule, which was very large. The remaining two 

 thirds of the body were, as yet, unfurnished with circulatory tubes, 

 and the circulatory system seemed to be represented mainly by 

 two large quadrangular sinuses — one on each side of the apex of 

 the digestive cavity. On a level with these sinuses, and connected 



