Microscopical Society of Victoria. 
15 
It was of a white colour and very peculiar growth. The 
shape and general appearance led me to think 1 had obtained 
a new variety of gorgonia, but to my great surprise, on 
treating it with potash, I found it produced no material 
effect upon it, as in the case of gorgonias. I then subjected 
it to nitric acid, when I found I had a sponge containing 
very remarkable silicious spicules which, though small, 
measuring about 1-1000 inch, and taking a £-inch objective 
to resolve them, fully repaid me for my trouble. 
The spicules are stellate, with three, four, five, and six 
arms—I camiot call them points, as in a star. In most 
cases these spicules are flat, the arms radiating from a 
common centre, and instead of being sharp-pointed, as in 
the ordinary sponge, the spicules are terminated by an 
irregularly jagged, club-shaped end. 
In some cases there is another arm projecting upward 
from the centre, while in others there are arms both above 
and below the centre. 
The spicules are interspersed with the ordinary long, 
straight, and some few slightly-curved pointed sponge 
spicules. I would strongly advise those members who 
obtained a specimen to treat it with acid, and to separate 
the stellate spicules for a slide by themselves. 
The drawings I have made are very much enlarged and 
are shown on plate I., figs. 5, 6, 7, 8. 
Infusoria in Australia. By Chas. M. Maplestone. 
[With Plate.] 
[Bead 31st May, 1877.] 
In many points the objects in the animal kingdom are 
more interesting to microscopists, beginners as well as 
experts, than those of the vegetable kingdom. The fact of 
their having life and motion is in itself sufficient to make 
them attractive, and it is the privilege of the microscopist 
to be enabled to see the various lower forms which are 
invisible to the naked eye, to trace the different steps fr om 
the simplest to the most complex, and to observe the various 
organs arid tissues of the higher forms. 
The simplest form of life is that of the Amoeba, which is 
only a small speck of jelly-like matter, without any apparent 
covering. Next comes the Rhizopoda, of which lJiffiugia 
is an example. These have an apparent covering, but from 
