Miscellaneous. 269 



in the montli of August ; and Dr. Johnston subsequently met with 

 other specimens of the same plant later in the season, as he recorded 

 in the minutes of the Proceedings of the Berwickshire Naturalists' 

 Club. 



It is perhaps worth notice, that the Kallymenia reniformis found 

 in this neighbourhood has uniformly the small, round-leaved, shrubby 

 character of the figure of it in Sowerby's * English Botany.' The 

 fruit is also large for the size of the plant. 



If these trifling notices can be made available for the information 

 of any of your readers, I shall be very glad. 



Yours, &c., 



Margaret Gatty. 



ON THE SUPPOSED NEW BRITISH SPECIES OF SKENEA. 



To the Editors of the Annals of Natural History. 



Upton Hall, Birkenhead, Feb. 9, 1857. 



Gentlemen, — I am indebted to the kindness of J. Gwyn Jeffreys, 

 Esq., for permission to send to your Journal the following extract from 

 a letter, the result of an examination kindly undertaken by him of the 

 small Skenea found by me at Falmouth, — which I at first considered 

 a new species (a short account of which appeared in your Journal a 

 few months since), — and a careful comparison of it with a specimen 

 taken by himself in the Mediterranean, and also a series of the 

 ordinary form of Skenea rota, taken in a living state by me at the 

 Land's End and other parts of Cornwall : — 



** The result of a careful comparison of these specimens induces 

 me to retain the opinion I at first formed, that your Skenea tricari- 

 nata is only a v^ariety of Skenea rota. Your species appears to differ 

 from >S. rota in its somewhat smaller size, in the whorls being flatter 

 and more angular (the latter character being probably attributable to 

 the greater prominence and distinctness of the ridges), and in the 

 transverse ribs being less marked and not so nodulose as in the 

 typical form. My specimens from the Mediterranean belong to 

 this variety. All the specimens have three spiral ridges, one of them 

 encircling the periphery and forming an obtuse keel, another on the 

 upper side, and a third on the lower side in the centre of each whorl. 

 The ridges are nearly equidistant from each other, and their direction 

 is marked by a fulvous band : this character has not, I believe, been 

 noticed by any one except yourself. I, however, give this opinion 

 with some reservation, as I should have preferred to have an oppor- 

 tunity of comparing your specimens with others which I have myself 

 collected from various parts of the British and Irish coasts ; this 

 unfortunately I cannot do at present, while I am divorced from my 

 cabinets." 



I remain. Gentlemen, your obedient Servant, 



W. Webster. 



