NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 
Ill 
Hodsock, and 15-6° at Loughborough, also on the 21st. Rainfall was 
slightly above the average, the total values for the month being 3‘50 
inches at Henlev-in-Arden, 2-56 inches at Loughborough, 2*38 inches 
at Strelley, 2'35 inches at Coston Rectory, and 2*19 inches at Hodsock. 
The greatest fall occurred on the 16th, and varied from 0-64 to 0-52 of 
an inch. A little snow fell on two or three days. The prevailing 
winds were southerly, and occasionally strong in force. Sunshine was 
again deficient. A lunar halo was observed at Loughborough on the 
evening of the 27th. 
Wm. Berridge, F. R. Met. Soc. 
12, Victoria Street, Loughborough. 
♦ 
The Midland Union. —The Birmingham Societies are making 
vigorous preparations for the Annual Meeting of the Union, which is 
to be held in Birmingham in the middle of June. We trust that all 
the Societies in the Union will arrange their Meetings so as to leave 
the days selected (June 16tli and 17tli) free, and that a large number 
of their members will take part in the General Meeting, and attend 
the Soiree and Excursions. 
The Aquarium Department will form an attractive feature of the 
forthcoming Inventions Exhibition. Lord Onslow has lately presented 
1,500 exceedingly fine carp ; and a large number of fish indigenous to 
the Canadian Lakes have also been received for exhibition. 
The Fauna of Warwickshire, Worcestershire, and Staffordshire. 
—As I am compiling for publication lists of the Fauna of the above- 
named three counties, I shall be very much obliged for any assistance 
that the readers of the “ Midland Naturalist ” can give me. I am 
particularly in want of lists of Iusecta occurring in the three counties, 
with their localities and notes on abundance or scarcity, &c. Specialists 
wishing to contribute will kindly correspond with W. Harcourt Bath, 
Sutton Park, near Birmingham. 
Professor Hilliiouse, it is announced, will shortly publish, through 
Messrs. Sonnenschein and Co., an English version of Professor Stras- 
burger’s “ Das Kleine Botanische Practicum,” itself an abridgment of a 
much larger work published in the spring of last year. The book is 
intended primarily for students and practical workers, and, commencing 
with the most elementary researches, with the aid of the simplest 
apparatus only, it is carried up to embryological and other complex 
work. The volume will be fully illustrated by woodcuts drawn by the 
author, who is adding fresh notes of most recent information. 
A New Protozoon. —The new chloropliyllogenous protozoon, dis¬ 
covered by Mr. Thomas Bolton, has recently been described by 
Professor Ray Lankester. He has named it after its discoverer, and 
after Mr. William Archer, of Dublin (the discoverer of so many 
Heliozoa), Archerina Boltoni. It is simply a sphere of dense proto¬ 
plasm, with radiating pseudopodia, one or more vacuoles (but none 
contractile), and a single or bifid chlorophyll corpuscle. It passes 
through actinophryd, encysted, and vegetative stages. Some may 
regard it as a case of symbiosis between a moner-like protozoon and 
a unicellular alga, but Professor Lankester thinks there is no ground 
for such a supposition. 
