42 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Feb. 1, 1S6S. 



Baby Pbawns. — Truth compels me to say that 

 my friend Mr. J. K. Lord was mistaken when he 

 wrote in Once a Week—" I am disposed to think- 

 that the baby prawn, when it quits the egg is 

 the exact counterpart of its parent in everythin g 

 except size." I should have thought it unnecessary 

 to notice the inaccuracy if it had not been most 

 unaccountably confirmed by " G. S." in Science- 

 Gossip of last month. I have more than once 

 obtained a brood of young prawns {Palaemon 

 serratus) by keeping in a vessel of sea-water a 

 " berried " female ready to spawn. There is, it is 

 true, a certain general resemblance between the 

 parent prawn and its young. The difference is not 

 so marked as that between the zoe and the mature 

 condition of the crab; but still it is sufficiently 

 distinct and important to immediately attract atten- 

 tion. I have before me a slide containing a number 

 of these little creatures mounted for the microscope 

 last season, about twenty-four hours after they were 

 hatched. They present as nearly as possible the 

 appearance of another species of prawn figured in 

 its larval state by Mr. Bell in the Introduction to 

 his British Crustacea (page lix.), and exactly cor- 

 responds with his description of them. The true 

 feet are rudimentary ; the eyes wholly sessile, and 

 not elevated on loot-stalks ; the rostrum is unde- 

 veloped ; there is no appearance of abdominal 

 members ; and the tail is of a simple spatulate form, 

 "remarkably different," as Mr. Bell correctly states 

 " from the highly developed and complicated struc- 

 ture of that organ in the adult." 



In the young lobster, also, the tail is of this 

 spatulate form, and is not separated into leaflets 

 until it has undergone one or more metamorphoses. 



If " G. S." will communicate with me by letter at 

 the office of Land and Water, 80, Fleet Street, I* shall 

 be happy to make an appointment with him, and to 

 show him the specimens of young prawns and 

 lobsters I have referred to ; and I shall be glad to 

 examine those^ which have enabled him, in con- 

 tradiction to experienced naturalists, to state as a 

 positive fact, that which Mr. Lord was only dis- 

 posed to think— namely, that "the baby prawns 

 undergo no changes, but are the exact counterpart 

 of their mother iu everything except size."— Henry 

 Lee. 



Ciiameleons.— I noticed in your useful publication 

 for November last (No. 35) an averment founded 

 on Clermont's " Reptiles of Europe," that the 

 Chameleon is not found at the Cape of Good Hope. 

 This is an error ; it is one of our most common 

 reptiles, and numerous over the colony. I am not 

 acquainted with more than one species ; but its 

 variety of colour and marking is prodigious. Black 

 and brown, grey, yellow and buff, and apple-green 

 with dark purple stripes or spots, arc the more 

 common varieties. — C. A. F., Capetown. 



BOTANY. 



A New Cabduus.— Mr. Jenner laid on the table, 

 at a recent meeting of the Botanical Society 

 of Edinburgh, twelve sheets of specimens of a 

 Cardans, new to Britain certainly, and probably 

 new to Europe, if not new to science. The de- 

 scriptive characters of the plant, which it is pro- 

 posed to call Cardans carolorum (it was discovered 

 by Mr. Charles Howie and Mr. Charles Jenner), 

 will show botanists its distinctive peculiarities. It 

 does not vary much from a plant described by 

 Linnaeus in his " Species Plantarum " edition,*I753, 

 under the name of fiarduus helenioides, found in 

 Siberia, but it is distinguished from it by some 

 marked specific differences. It was gathered on the 

 borders of Ross-shire, within a very circumscribed 

 area, growing on a high bank above a rocky 

 streamlet. Grim old indigenous trees of the Finns 

 syhestris were thinly scattered up and down, and 

 mountains of considerable elevation shadowed the 

 place. This Carduus may perhaps be a hybrid 

 between C. palustris and C. heterophyllus ; but the 

 point of interest is, that it appears to be in every 

 respect a true species, maintaining its place in 

 nature by the power it has of reproducing itself 

 aud of conserving its own special characteristics. — 

 Gardener's Chronicle. 



Floba oe Bucks. — The list of Buckinghamshire 

 plants, referred to at p. 277 of Science-Gossip for 

 1S67, is now published, and I shall be glad to send 

 a copy to any one who may desire it. The total 

 number o'f plants enumerated is 777 species and 22 

 varieties. Of these, 719, and 19, respectively, may 

 be considered as native, or naturalized : 52, and 2, 

 as introduced, and not naturalized ; while 5 species 

 and. 1 variety may be considered as doubtful, or 

 erroneously recorded. Since the publication of the 

 list, I have been enabled to add Filago gallica to it. 

 There is a specimen in the herbarium of the British 

 Museum from Iver, gathered by Mr. Lightfoot. 

 This, with the recent discovery of the plant in 

 Surrey (see p. 278, vol. hi.), raises its cornital area 

 to 5. Mr. J. C. Melvill informs mc that he 

 eoWected'^Fofamogeton pusillus and P. perfoliatus 

 near Great Marlow in 1864. These are also 

 additions to my list. The number of Bucks species 

 is thus raised to 7S0. — James Britten, High 

 Wycombe. 



Dbagon-tbee of Tenebifee. — The famous 

 Dragon-tree of Orotava has been blown down by a 

 furious gale land wholly destroyed, after having 

 flourished, it is said, for sixty centuries. A storm 

 in 1S19 deprived this tree of part of its crown, but 

 now all that remained' has become a wreck. Its 

 circumference was about 4S feet, whilst the total 

 height did not exceed 75 feet. 



