Helios

Helios has kindly provided this note:

Fred Enock was the acknowledged master of entomological slide preparation. He was also a fine naturalist, and his work on the Fairy flies(Mymaridae) and the Trap Door spider amongst others, is testament to his perseverence and observational skills. The Fairy flies were such a difficult subject to capture, let alone identify and document their life cycle, that he bred them on the eggs of other insects to answer these questions. This slide is of the beautiful Mymar puchellus, the Battle-dore wing fly. It speaks for itself, but is unusual for the fact that in Enock's hand are the words "BRED" and a number. I would deduce that it was one of his 'specials' and probably was retained by him, whilst he was working on his magnum opus on the Mymaridae.

Maxwell Scott joined the Quekett Club in 1944. He was quietly proficient in a number of skills and produced a set of 12 microphotographs of engravings and etchings by William Hogarth(1697-1764). The quality of these slides is as good as anything produced before or since. Hogarth was a masterly observer and satirist of contemporary life. He greatly influenced those who were to follow. This slide is one of his set of 8 plates entitled "The Rake's Progress". This one is 'Tom Rakewell is surrounded in the morning by tradesmen'.

[Ed: I counted 'Scottie' as a friend. He let me have a number of diatom strews at a nominal price and was alway ready to offer advice and help. He attended club meetings regularly and I was therefore disappointed that no obituary appeared on the Journal]

Above: a fine Dark Ground Illumination shot of a selection of centric diatoms. The finer the markings the bluer the colours. Red indicates coarser markings.

A most unusual slide! The caption on the whole slide is really self-explanatory, but it just shows how sharp a bee's sting really is. One point that surprises me - I had always understood that the bee's sting was barbed, to prevent withdrawal, but I can see no trace of this here.

Another unusual slide, and seasonable to boot!

A splendid shot of the cross section through a sea urchin spine. Rheinberg illumination was used with a black centre spot and half red, half green for the outer annulus.

Another striking shot from our regular contributor - Helios.

This time it's a crossed polar picture of Brusceine.

May: A Clarke & Page slide of "Plates, bones and spines from starfish". To be viewed with "spot lens or polariscope, 3" to 1" .