Natural History hi Foreign Countries, 387 



1825, in a wood near Kleinzererbst, in the duchy of Anhalt-Coethen. It is 

 difficult to explain the appearance of this bird, exchisively indigenous to 

 North America, unless it be supposed to have escaped from a cage ; though 

 the bird, which was a male, was in fine feather, and exhibited no marks of 

 confinement. {OkerCs Isis, v. p. 520.) 



Geological Indications. — The Russian minister, Struve, has collected 

 some very interesting geological facts in the environs of Hanover. At Lin- 

 den and Vetbergen the coarse chalk contains ammonites, belemnites, and 

 impressions of fishes; at Gehrden, a chalky marl, lying over sandstone, con- 

 tains crabs, like those of the island of Amboina ; at Bargberg, near Gehrden,, 

 oysters are found ; near Linden is a spring of petroleum ; near Badenstadt, 

 at the foot of the Lindenerberg, a salt spring was discovered in 1778 ; near 

 Norten there is a quarry of galena and sulphate of strontian ; in the bail-, 

 liage of Blumenau there was found a specimen of amber j and near Bemerode 

 is a mound of excellent plastic clay. The Deister possesses mineral springs, 

 acidulous and ferruginous. 



NETHERLANDS. 



Proliferous Flowers. — M. Courtois has given excellent descriptions, in 

 the Bydragen tot de Natuurkund Wetensckappen, of two proliferous flowers, 

 and dommunicated specimens and figures of them to M. Nees of Bonn. 

 The one is the jErysimum cheiranthoides, the other the Ver6nica media 

 Schrad.y var. phyllantha. These proliferous varieties have been perpetuated 

 for several years in the botanic garden of Liege. A singular variety of the 

 Lonicera Periclymenum is described in the same work by MM. Koiiing and 

 Van Hall, in which the stamens have been transformed into a second 

 corolla. {Bulletin des Sciences.) 



Flora Belgica. — The first volume of a work under this title has just 

 been published by two excellent botanists, MM. le Jeune and Courtois, 

 containing 597 species, arranged according to the Linnean system, and 

 extending inclusively to Pentandria Polygynia. 



SWITZERLAND. 



Migration of Butterflies. — On the 8th or 10th of the month of June, 

 Madame de Meuron Wolff and all her family, established during the sum- 

 mer in the district of Grandson, Canton de Vaud, perceived with surprise 

 an immense flight of butterflies traversing the garden with great rapidity. 

 All these butterflies were of the species called the Painted Lady, the Belle 

 Dame of the French, the Papilio cardui of Linnaeus, and Vanessa cardui of 

 the modern system. They were all flying closely together, in the same 

 direction, from south to north, and were so little afraid when any one ap- 

 proached, that they turned not to the right or left. The flight continued 

 for two hours without interruption, and the column was about 10 or 15 ft. 

 broad. They did not stop to alight on flowers, but flew onwards, low and 

 equally. 



This fact is exceedingly singular, when it is considered that the cater- 

 pillars of the Vanessa cardui are not gregarious, but are solitary from the 

 moment they are hatched. Professor Bonelli of Turin, however, observed 

 a similar flight of the same species of butterflies in the end of the March 

 preceding their appearance at Grandson. Their flight was also directed 

 from south to north, and their numbers were immense. At night the 

 flowers were literally covered with them. Towards the 29th of March 

 their numbers diminished, but even in June a few still continued. They 

 have been traced from Coni, Raconni, Suse, &c. A similar flight of butter- 

 flies is recorded, at the end of the last century, by M. Loche, in the Me- 

 moirs of the Academy of Turin. During the whole season, those butterflies, 



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