}24 



The Naturalist. 



external germs were carefully excluded from the operations, no life was 

 produced^ he concluded that the answer to the question propounded 

 was:— "The minute forms of life which make their appearance in 

 . decaying organic solutions are the developments of spores and ova which 

 have been carried by the air, or have been contained in the solution : 

 they are not the result of decay or putrefaction, or fermentation, but are 

 the descendants of others that have gone before them." An animated 

 discussion followed, — H. Frankliis" Parsons, M.D., Sec. 



HuDDERSFiELD SCIENTIFIC Club. — Meeting Feb. 9th, in the Museum, 

 South Street, Mr. G. T. Porritt, F.L.S., in the chair.— The following 

 periodicals were promised monthly or quarterly as they appear : — By Mr, 

 S. D. Bairstow, "Zoologist," "Entomologist," " Entomologists' Monthly 

 Magazine," and "Popular Science Review;" by Messrs. C. P. Hobkirk 

 and G. T. Porritt, "Science Gossip" "Quarterly Journal of Con- 

 chology," and "Naturalist;" by Mr. George Brooke, ter., "Nature;" 

 Mr. Bairstow also presented " Clarke's Objects of the Microscope" to 

 the library. The exhibitions included the following conchological 

 specimens by Mr. John Conacher : — Vitrina pdlucida, Physa fontinalis, 

 and Planorhis nitidus from Elland Wood, and LimncEa peregra from seven 

 different localities. Mr. Bairstow showed Bulimus acutus from Llandudno. 

 In entomology Mr. Porritt showed a series of Ephestia elutella, bred and 

 sent to him by Mr. J. P. Wellman, of London. Mr. Bairstow, a specimen 

 of Phigalia pilosaria taken at Grimescar on the 31st of January last. Mr. 

 W. D. Roebuck, Metopius dentatus, an ichneumonidous parasite from the 

 larva of Bomhyx callunoi ; he also showed a remarkable mounted specimen 

 of an insect taken near Leeds, and sent for exhibition by Mr. James 

 Abbott. None of the members could say anything about it. A most 

 interesting paper on " Yorkshire Locusts" was then read by Mr. W. 

 Denison RoelDuck, of Leeds, which was most clearly illustrated by means 

 of coloured maps showing the localities and distribution of the captured 

 specimens (nearly, if not quite all of wliich appeared to be the species 

 known as Pachytylns cinerascens) in Britain. A discussion on the 

 paper ensued, most members believing that locusts have never bred in 

 Britain, contrary to the opinion of Baron de Seleys Longchamps and 

 others. — G. B. 



HuDDEKSFiELD Naturalists' Society.^ — Meeting January 29th, the 

 president, Mr. Joseph Tindall, in the chair. Mr, L. Peace named a case 

 of fine specimens of Helix aspersa, exhibited by Mr. Joseph Whitwam ; 

 the case contained, besides the above, the following : — H. alhofasciata, 

 JT. exalbida, H. conoidea, and H. te7mis. The president read a very 

 interesting letter from a member at present residing in Florence, named 

 J. E. Zilliken, dated Jan. 11th, ] 877, in which he stated that his friend 

 Dr. Forsyth Mayor had discovered one of the missing links in the long 

 chain of Paleontological evolution, which, so far as he knew, had not been 



* We purpose puLlisLing this p;ipe;i' in full in our next issue. —Eds. Nat. 



