262 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. [^^lll^L^l^irC^S 
anatomical preparations; and showing how beautiful, as objects of 
studies, are the Diatomacece and Desmidece, and how truly wonderful 
is it that in objects so minute there should be so much real beauty 
and geometrical precision of outline ; in conclusion, drawing attention 
to the various modern appliances and apparatus connected with the 
microscope. 
Microscopical Society of Liverpool. 
The second meeting of this Society was held at the Eoyal Institu- 
tion, on Tuesday, February 2nd, J. Birkbeck Nevins, Esq., M.D., 
President, in the chair. 
Mr. G. S. W ood (of Messrs. Abraham & Co.'s) exhibited Wood- 
ward's " Heliostat," made by his firm after a drawing furnished by 
Mr. T. Higgin. 
The Secretary read a letter from Mr. T. C. White, accompanying a 
collection of slides of Hippuric Acid, presented by him to the Society. 
Messrs. Whalley, Broad, Archer, and Packer were elected members 
of the Society. 
A paper was then read by the Eev. W. Banister, B.A., one of the 
Vice-Presidents, " On the Microscopical Structure and Development 
of Ferns." He introduced the subject by showing the importance of 
this branch of microscopical inquiry, as bearing on the question of the 
mode of reproduction in cryptogamic plants. 
After noticing that the break which it was formerly thought 
existed in the series between the flowering and non-flowering plants 
was nearly filled up, he stated that the organs now generally re- 
cognized as those of reproduction on the protballia of ferns, viz. the 
antheridia and archegonia, were analogous in their office to those of 
flowering plants, the spermatozoa emitted from the antheridia per- 
forming the part of the pollen, and fertilizing the germinal vesicle at 
the base of the archegoniam tube, as the pollen descends the style 
for the same purpose. 
He quoted Hofmeister's statement concerning the Coniferae, that 
in more than one respect the formation of the embryo of the Conifera3 
is intermediate between the highest Cryptogams and the flowering 
plants, and that the pollen of the Conifera? varies in a marked maiiner 
from that of other flowering plants, and exhibits vital j)]ienomena 
similar to those of some non-flowering plants. 
To show that the mode of reproduction in ferns touches the main 
system of vegetation in more points than one, he then culled attention 
to the remarkable fact that while in all the higher orders of animals 
and plants the power of reproduction is not attained till maturity, in 
ferns the very earliest tissue bears the organs on which continuation 
of the species depends ; and lastly, to the singular paradox, that whilst 
it is in the lowest forms of animal and vegetable life which are least 
easily distinguished from each other, a connection exists in the most 
important function, between a low class of plants and the highest 
members of the animal kingdoms, viz. in the mode of reproduction 
by motile spermatozoa. 
He adopted Hofmeister's view of the alternate generation of ferns, 
