48 
WAYSIDE NOTE.-REPORTS OF SOCIETIES. Feb., 1889. ’ 
regarded as “Winter”—improved. There are a number of 
good woodcuts, and eight excellent plates, lithographed by 
Messrs. West, Newman, and Co., most of which are made 
from the author’s original drawings. The typographical 
arrangement is especially neat and convenient. The book is 
well indexed—that of “ host-plants ” being particularly 
useful—and will be simply indispensable to all students of 
Leaf-fungi in this country. 
®apik Bote. 
Fresh Water Life.— While examining some specimens of 
Carchesiurn polypinum and Vorticella nebulifera, I noticed a peculiar 
feature in them I had never seen before, although I have had them 
under the microscope on and off for years. I allude to a number of 
thin, long, transparent filaments clothing the pedicels of these 
creatures, notably the Carchesiurn. Some were quite thick with these 
aforesaid filaments. Whether anyone else has noticed them I do not 
know ; but certainly I have seen no notice or sketch of them in any 
of our manuals. I have thought them worth just a passing notice. 
I may add that I have only at present seen the filaments on specimens 
from one place. They much reminded me of the transparent thin 
filamentous rootlets so commonly seen in Nitella flexilis and others of 
the CharaceaB.—E. H. W., Edgbaston. 
Imports of Somties. 
BIRMINGHAM NATURAL HISTORY AND MICROSCOPICAL 
SOCIETY. —Sociological Section. The 100th meeting of this section 
was held on November 27th, Mr. W. R. Hughes, F.L.S., in the chair; 
nineteen members present. Mr. Bagnall exhibited for Mr. Hughes thirty - 
one species of plants from Cobham Lane, Kent. For Miss Gingell, 
Echium vulgare , Viola Reicheubachiana, and Polygala vulgaris from 
Dursley. For himself, Ulex Gallii and Ag. cyathiformis from Corley 
Rock. Mr. Hughes exhibited a leaf of a Virginian creeper from the 
back of Dickens’s house; also a new photograph of Mr. Herbert 
Spencer. Mr. Stone exhibited the skull of a marmoset, an echinus, 
Phyllacanthus imperialism a large beetle, Hylotrupes dichotomus, from 
Japan, and pseudomorphs of Ammonites tuberculatus and A. lautus in 
iron pyrites, from Lyme Regis. Mr. W. P. Marshall, M.I.C.E., read 
his paper on “ Modern Railways,” illustrated by a number of maps and 
diagrams. —Supplementary Meeting, December 6th, 1888, Mr. W. R. 
Hughes, F.L.S., in the chair; eight members present. It was proposed 
by Mr. A. Browett, seconded by Mr. Stone and carried, that the 
dates of the supplementary meetings be altered from the 1st and 3rd 
Thursdays in the month to the 2nd and 4th. Mr. Stone exhibited the 
wing of the eucalyptus leaf insect which simulated the leaf of the 
eucalyptus so perfectly as to deceive even an experienced eye; the 
midrib and minor veins being accurately reproduced. Miss Goyne read 
the latter portion of the eighth chapter of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s “ First 
Principles,” entitled “ The Transformation and Equivalence of Forces.” 
