11 
n 
sequent inspection of the original confirmed this; and likewise 
enlightened us about the eyes. For the left orbit was found to occur, 
not in a woody structure, like that of the right side, but in a dark 
material having the appearance of pitch or cement of some sort. 
'* We may rest assured that whatever there may be which is facti- 
tious in this most curious h/sus natiirce originated before it came into 
the hands of His Excellency the Brazilian Minister at Washington. 
If these marks were not discerned by any of the Parisian savants- 
which we are slow to believe — they are less likely to have been 
noticed by Senor Lopez Netto, whose honor and good faith are in- 
contestible." 
The character of the object might, it seems to us, have been at 
once determined by making a transverse section to ascertain whether 
the serpentine form contained within it a bony frame- work, which, 
in the situation where the alleged lignification was detected, would 
naturally have proved imperishable. 
Action of Poisons on the Petals of Floivers.^K. Anthony Nesbit, 
F.C.S., states in the Journal of Science that he has made some ex- 
periments on the action of various substances on the life of flowers, 
and for this purpose selected some of the best known alkaloids, viz., 
strychnine, solanine, digitaline, quinidine,^ atropine, quinine, cin- 
chonine, picrotoxine, aconitine, brucine and morphine, using one- 
quarter per cent, and one per cent, solutions. The alkaloid of 
tobacco being very difficult to obtain pure, owing to its rapid oxida 
tion, 5 per cent, and 20 per cent, solutions of tobacco (bird's eye) 
were used in its stead. The flower chosen for experiment was the 
Narcissus, and the results showed that there was here a wide field for 
long and patient investigation. 
Of all the twelve solutions, tobacco proved, in a very marked 
manner, to be most destructive to the life of the flower of the Nar- 
cissus ; the remaining eleven poisons, though but slowly injurious, 
nevertheless in some insfances showed marked difference of effect, 
or, it may be said, symptom. Thus strychnine, next in poisonous 
power to tobacco, drew the petals upward, and made them^ dry and 
brittle, symptoms also exhibited by solanine poisoning, while quini- 
dine and several other alkaloids rendered the petals limp and rotten. 
Morphine, one of the least poisonous (to the Narcissus) of the alka- 
loids experimented with, without destroying the flower, curiously 
enough imparted to the petals a flaccidity resembling that of the 
petals of the poppy. 
The Fungi of Cincinnati.— T:he Catalogue of Plants collected in 
the vicinity of Cincinnati, Ohio, during the years 1834-44, by 
Thomas G. Lea (Cincinnati, 1849) contains a list of fungi, with 
notes on the species and descriptions of many new ones by Rev. M. 
J. Berkeley. The Cincinnati Society of Natural History has ren- 
dered a great service to the many students of mycology in this coun- 
try by republishing, in the current number of its Journal (Vol. v., 
No. 4), all that pertains to fungi in the above-named catalogue, 
which has long been out of print and is now inaccesssible. We are 
indebted for a copy of the paper in pamphlet form to Mr. Davis L. 
James, through whose instrumentality, we presume, the Society was 
induced to reproduce it. 
