des Nattiralistes de Moscou. 253 



to Entomologj/, and it may be new to some of our readers. The 

 larva appears to be that of iV^octua occulta. It has 1 4 feet, 

 is about IJ in. long, and 1^ line in breadth. The back is 

 reddish brown, the sides and abdomen yellowish green. A 

 reddish brown ray passes along the back, and two along the 

 sides. M. Gimmerthal found this caterpillar near Riga, 

 upon a plant, about 9 o'clock p. M. when it appeared entirely 

 covered with a bright phosphorescent flame. The head and 

 the legs were equally luminous, the brown spots of the former 

 part and the rays of the body only appearing somewhat 

 obscure. When placed on a printed leaf, the light was 

 sufficient to permit the adjoining lines to be distinctly read. 

 It was preserved alive for eight days, during the last four of 

 which the light became less intense. On the 5th of September 

 it began to dry, but still preserved a little phosphorescence, 

 which at this period became stronger by friction. Two days 

 after this, the process of drying was complete, and the light 

 disapjieared. 



In No. vii. there is a letter from M. Hedenstrom, to whom 

 the Russian Government had intrusted an expedition for 

 the purpose of tracing geometrically the coasts of the Icy 

 Sea from Lena to Colyma, and of making a description of the 

 isles of the north. He was three years in these remarkable 

 countries, and discovered a new island, which he named New 

 Siberia, because its general appearance is much more savage 

 than that of the Old Siberia. In the unchangeable icy crusts 

 of these countries there were found buried thousands of the 

 mammoth (mammout), rhinoceros, buffalo, and other ante- 

 diluvian animals. New Siberia is indeed a country full of 

 wonders, but which naturalists can only admire, for it is im- 

 possible to study nature there. The ground, frozen, and hard 

 as the rock, cannot be dug into ; and the summer is too short 

 for the necessary researches. 



No. viii. is wholly occupied with an elaborate synopsis of 

 the genus Absinthium by Dr. Besser, a part of a monograph 

 of the Armoisies of Linne, in preparation by the same botanist. 



Some notices of the mammoth and fossil rhinoceros, from 

 the pen of the director Fischer, occupy the greater portion of 

 No. ix. The mammoth, or more properly the mammout, is, 

 as most of our readers may know, a fossil elephant, the bones 

 of which occur buried in profusion in the soil of Siberia. 

 The first notice of it appears in the Gn^ammatica Riissica of 

 Ludolph, printed at Oxford in 1696. He says, "but the 

 mammoutovoi is a thing of great curiosity, which is dug out 

 of the ground in Siberia. The vulgar tell wonderful stories 

 about it ; for they say that the bones be those of an animal 



