Miscellaneous. 279 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



REPRODUCTION OF LOST PARTS IN ARTICULATA. 



To the Editors of the Annals of Natural History. 



Hammersmith, 5th March 1847. 



Gentlemen, — Will you kindly allow me to mention, for the infor- 

 mation of some of your readers who may have been led (from Mr. 

 Newport's observations in the March Number of the * Annals ') to 

 suppose that I had quietly taken up a theory of his and passed it off 

 as my own, that my remarks (to which he alludes) were made at a 

 meeting of the Entomological Society when he himself was in the 

 Chair, and that instead of applying to the spines and spurs of the 

 tibiae of the reproduced legs of an insect (such spines and spurs being 

 articulated appendages of the limb), my observations referred to the 

 membranous lobes of the femur, tibiae and tarsus of the leg of a species 

 of Phasmidee in my own collection, such lobes being integral, and not 

 articulated, portions of the joints ? It was from this circumstance, in 

 conjunction with Mr. Fortnum's observations, that I was led to be- 

 lieve that the limb of my specimen had been reproduced. 



I shall not further notice Mr. Newport's observations than to state 

 that the abnormally small size of a leg must necessarily be the result 

 of retarded development in those species which have apodal larvae, 

 as must also the diminished size of the wing in any species. Illus- 

 trations of many such abnormities will in due time be given to the 

 public. 



I am, Gentlemen, your obedient servant, 



J. O. Westwood. 



NOTE ON A BRITISH SPECIMEN OF OCULINA PROLIFERA. 



For a considerable time that beautiful coral, Oculina prolifera, has 

 been known, though not generally, to be a native of the Norwegian 

 seas ; but it is entirely to the Rev. Dr. Fleming that naturalists are 

 indebted for the fact, that it is also a member of the British fauna : 

 the fact however has never yet been so satisfactorily proved as to 

 command an unqualified conviction. About twelve years ago a fine 

 mass of this coral, measuring eleven inches in diameter, was presented 

 to the Newcastle Museum by Mr. G. C. Atkinson, one of the 

 Honorary Curators, who received it from a friend, with the state- 

 ment that it had been brought up by the fishing-lines from deep 

 water on the coast of Shetland ; but so doubtful were the then 

 officers of the Institution as to so tropical a form being a native of 

 Britain (especially when there was a probability of its having been 

 lost overboard from some foreign vessel, supposing that it had ac- 

 tually been fished up from where it was stated, and such like instances 

 do occasionally occur ; for example, a large specimen of Gorgonia 

 flahellum, now in the museum, was brought up by the lines of the 

 Cullercoats fishermen last year), that it was thought best not to 



