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THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
The true Prawn (Palawan serratus) is also an Essex species and
well known. P. squilla is a small form from the western part of
the Channel, where it is "the Prawn."
Palaemon varians is another and decidedly Essex form,
occuring in vast numbers in the creeks and inlets of this part
of our coast.
[Mr. Lovett concluded his lecture by giving some practical instructions
upon collecting and preserving crustaceans for the cabinet : and the methods
by which he preserved the ova and zoaea stages permanently for future
microscopical examination. We hope to publish these notes, revised by
Mr. Lovett, later.
We had also intended to publish with this abstract a list of the species
of Stalk-eyed Crustaceans known to occur on our Essex coast, but the
catalogue is so manifestly imperfect that we await the results of another
season's collecting before printing it.—Ed.]
THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
VISIT TO THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS.
Saturday, January 27TH, 1900.
Conductor:—Professor Charles Stewart, M.A., F.R.S., F.L.S.
(Hunterian Professor and Conservator of the Museum.)
On the kind invitation of our esteemed Honorary Member, Prof. Stewart,
a visit was paid on this afternoon to the Museum under his care,
which is of European reputation as the repository of John Hunter's
collections, and which was afterwards the scene of the labours of Quekett,
Owen and Flower.
The members and visitors (a large party) assembled in the Hall of the
College in Lincolns Inn Fields at 3 o'clock, and were received by Prof.
Stewart, who acted as "conductor." His genius as an expositor of difficult
facts in morphology and biology is well-known to most London students, and
on this afternoon he kept the attention and interest of the party to the end of
a long survey of this magnificent collection. It would be quite impossible to
give even an idea of the riches of the Museum ; for professional students
there is a collection of preparations and models illustrating comparative
anatomy, physiology, pathology and surgery, probably unrivalled in Europe.
And for the ordinary naturalist there are many series of great interest and
educational value, relating to classification, mimicry, embryology, &c. The
collection of ethnological specimens is also very fine. And under Professor
Stewart's care, these biological series are increasing, and are quite abreast of
the most recent results of science.
The great ingenuity of many of the methods of exhibiting specimens
was much commented on, and in no museum can be seen such successful
"wet-preparations" as at Lincolns Inn Fields.