295 



author to run in opposite directions, which he subsequently saw was 

 not the case, — their direction is the same. This error he corrected 

 in Miiller's Archiv for 1850. 



The author remarks, that observers in their endeavours to reach 

 the ultimate structure of the muscular fibril have actually gone too 

 far, and reached a later generation, — mistaking for the fibril a row of 

 quadrilateral particles, the mere elements thereof. These particles, 

 he observes, are known to be alternately light and dark in alternate 

 order ; they give origin to the term spirals ; and for this purpose 

 the dark particles undergo what observers have entirely overlooked, 

 division and subdivision, which changes he has figured in Miiller's 

 Archiv, 1850. The preparation in which he has again met with 

 the subdivision into four is still, the author states, in his possession 

 for demonstration to others, 



2. " On the penetration of Spermatozoa into the interior of the 

 Ovum ; a Note showing this to have been recorded as an established 

 fact in the Philosophical Transactions for 1843." By Martin 

 Barry, M.D., F.R.S., F.R.S.E. Received February 24, 1853. 



Referring to a statement by Dr. Nelson, in a paper "On the re- 

 production of the Ascaris Mystax," that the investigations in that 

 paper " appear to be the first in which the fact of the penetration of 

 spermatozoa into the ovum has been distinctly seen and clearly 

 established in one of the most highly organized of the Entozoa," 

 the author of the present communication remarks, that when Dr. 

 Nelson made this statement he was evidently not aware of what had 

 been published on the subject. In proof of this Dr. Barry refers to 

 his own paper, entitled " Spermatozoa observed within the Alammi- 

 ferousOvum" (Phil. Trans. 1843, p. 33), in which he states that 

 he had met with ova of the Rabbit containing a number of sperma- 

 tozoa in their interior ; and to the Edinburgh New Philosophical 

 Journal for October 1843, which contains a drawing in which seven 

 spermatozoa are represented in the interior of an ovum, besides the 

 statement that in one instance he had counted more than twenty 

 spermatozoa in a single ovum. In conclusion he remarks, that Dr. 

 Nelson merely added a further confirmation in ova of an entozoon, to 

 what his own researches on mammiferous ova had enabled him to 

 record as an established fact nine years before. 



The Society then adjourned to the 7th of Anril. 



April 7, 1853. 



COLONEL SABINE, R.A., Treas. & V.P., in the Chair. 



A paper was read, entitled " Observations on the Anatomy of the 

 Antennae in a small species of Crustacean." By John D. M'^Donald, 

 M.D., Assistant Surgeon to H.M.S.V. Torch. Communicated by 



