480 Miscellaneous. 



side of his gravel walk, just under the shade of the tuft, where the 

 walks are seldom used, gather together in a head all the loose stones 

 within 6 or 8 inches of their hole, and heap them over its opening, 

 sometimes to a considerable height. The holes when the stones are 

 removed are large, and there are often also a few straws projecting 

 from them. I do not recollect to have observed any similar habit in 

 the worm in the neighbourhood of London ; they are probably a 

 different species. — J. E. Gray. 



OCCURRENCE OF ATRIPLEX ROSEA. 



Atriplex rosea, lately added by Mr. Babington to the Flora of the 

 Channel Islands, is I apprehend not uncommon on most of the coasts 

 of England ; it is mentioned in Dillenius's edition of Ray's Synopsis, 

 as growing near Maldon, in Essex, and near Selsey, in Sussex, in 

 both which counties I have known it more than fifty years, and ha- 

 ving cultivated it, have always with Samuel Dale considered it as 

 distinct from Atriplex patula, though in opposition to the great 

 names of Ray, Petiver, Hudson, Smith, &c. I am much pleased 

 now to find my opinion confirmed by that of so able an investigator 

 of British plants as my friend Babington. — Edw. Forster. 



THE ANIMAL OF MODIOLUS DISCREPANS. 



The mantle lobes of this animal are free all round, except at the 

 hinder edge, in the upper part of which they emit a short truncated 

 contractile tube. The hinder part of the lower edges of the mantle, 

 when the animal is expanded, is slightly produced, and folded on the 

 edge of the shell. The foot is rather large and moveable, extensile, 

 becoming strap-shaped, extended in front, with a small flattened disk 

 at the end, and keeled along its lower edge. This foot is sometimes 

 bent back to the hinder opening of the mantle lobes, but it is gene- 

 rally produced in front, and the animal uses the disk at the end of 

 it to enable it to turn itself from side to side, and to place itself in 

 an erect position when it walks by extending its foot to its utmost 

 length, and thus advancing the shell and body along the whole ex- 

 tent of the foot at each move. It also creeps with the foot on the 

 surface of the water, with the shell downwards like a Cyclas ; and it 

 has the power, like that genus, of crawling up the smooth surface 

 of glass or china. When the animal slides on the surface of the 

 water the gills can be distinctly seen ; they extend quite to the base 

 of the tube. I could not observe the course of the water in their 

 shell, but in the young of the common Modiolus (Modiolus barbatus) 

 it entered in currents, coming from all sides of the shell into the 

 spaces between the two lobes of the mantle, in the middle of the in- 



