248 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



simple Jfonera, being drop-like masses of protoplasm, even 

 without a nucleus, and discovered in Smith Sound. It is ex- 

 tremely doubtful whether this is an organism; possibly it 

 may be only a portion of the jelly-like secretion which is 

 produced so abundantly in the deep-water growths of the 



diatomaceaB. 



ZOOLOGY. 



Mr. F. Buckland states, in a late number of Hand and 

 Water, that the green-bearded oysters found not far from 

 Southend, Essex, owe their green color to the sporules of 

 the sea-weed called "crow-silk," which grows abundantly 

 in the Roach River; and that chemical analysis does not 

 show the slightest trace of copper or other mineral, while 

 the vegetable pigment itself imparts a peculiar taste and 

 agreeable flavor to the meat of these plump little oysters. 



At a recent meeting of the Academy of Natural Sciences 

 at Philadelphia, Professor Leidy explained a seeming phos- 

 phorescence of the water observed in cloudy afternoons as 

 due to the reflection of light from minute mirror-like append- 

 ages of small crustaceans. He also exhibited a tape-worm 

 said to have been taken from the inside of a large cucumber! 



In some researches on Filaria hematica, made by MM. 

 Gatch and Pourquier, and published in Comptes Rendits De- 

 cember 27, 1876, they found these w T orms in the blood of 

 the fetus of a bitch whose heart was filled with them ; but 

 they do not explain how they traversed the double walls of 

 the placenta in order to pass from parent to offspring. 



The Poduridos, or " spring-tails," of Sweden have been 

 monographed in an elaborate way by T. Tullberg. The 

 memoir is accompanied by twelve plates, and enters quite 

 fully into the anatomy of these little creatures of so much 

 interest to microscopists. The work appears in the Trans- 

 actions of the Royal Swedish Academy. 



BOTANY. 



Not Ion"- since, it was thought that the want of chloro- 

 phyl determined the parasitism of plants, as well as serving 

 to distinguish between fungi and alga;. The discovery of a 

 chlorophylaceous fresh-water alga as a bright emerald-green 

 parasite by Professor Cohn, in 1872, was the only known ex- 

 ception. At a late meeting of the Dublin Microscopical 



