38 Mr. G. W. Bailey on Siliceous Spicules in Actiniae. 



man informs me, that having once " set" nine eggs of the domestic 

 hen, he by mistake, at the expiration of two, instead of three weeks, 

 went to examine them, and lifting each egg shook it violently, to 

 ascertain if it were addled. He concluded that all were in this state, 

 and thought no more of the matter until a week afterv/ards, (the 

 twenty-one days having expired,) when the hen appeared strutting 

 about with seven or eight chickens ; the violent shaking in this in- 

 stance of eggs two- thirds incubated did not injure the contained 

 chick. Mr. Sinclaire has known his tame pigeons remain off the 

 nest all night when their eggs were half incubated, and though, as 

 in the case of those of the partridge, they felt quite cold, no injury 

 arose from this circumstance. 



Ptarmigan, Tetrao Lagopus, Sabine. — As remarked by me else- 

 where, " the T. Lagopus is not now, nor do I conceive ever was, in- 

 digenous to this island. There seems not to be in any part of Ire- 

 land a continuity of mountains of sufficient altitude to be suited to 

 the ptarmigan's abode." This species is known to so few persons, 

 that the following note may perhaps be worth insertion. 



** Dec. 1835.. — My relative Robert Langtry, Esq. (of Fortwilliam, 

 Belfast,) informs me that when at shooting quarters last autumn in 

 Ross- shire — on the banks of the Beulay, and close to Loch Monar — 

 he on several days shot four or five brace of ptarmigan. When his 

 dogs pointed and the birds were but a few yards distant, so great 

 was their assimilation in colour to the surrounding rocks, that he 

 could not distinguish them so long as they remained motionless. 

 They soon, however, stretched their necks and walked off before the 

 dogs, and on being further disturbed took wing, but only to alight 

 like a flock of pigeons on the tops of the adjacent stones. My 

 friend verifies the accounts of their being easy of access, but states 

 that, like other game, they are wild when the ground is wet." 

 [To be continued.] 



IV. — On the existence of Siliceous ? Spicules in the exterior rays 

 0/ Actinia. By G. W. Bailey, Prof. Chem. Min. and Geol. 

 U. S. Military Academy *. 



During a recent visit to Boston in April, I eagerly embraced the 

 long-wisbed-for opportunity to examine the marine siliceous in- 

 fusoria of our coast ; for I hoped to be able to detect, in a living 

 state, some of those elegant forms which occur so abundantly in 

 the fossil infusorial strata of the marine tertiary of Virginia. I 

 was aware that Ehrenberg had detected many of these forms in a 

 living state in the sea at Cuxhaven and elsewhere, and I felt con- 

 fident that our shores must abound in similar forms. In com- 

 pany with Dr. Gould, I visited the docks near the Chelsea ferry, 

 and collected from the immersed logs, &c. a quantity of filamen- 

 tous algae, among which I knew that many of the objects of my 



• From the Boston Journal of Natural History, vol. iv. No. 2. 



