214 Miscellaneous. 



of arms, and consequently refers it to the Crinoidea. M. Vollborth 

 saw these tentacula once only ; no one else has seen them. They 

 are placed on the lip of the mouth ; the arms of the Crinoidea how- 

 ever are really never placed there ; the apertures which our speci- 

 men exhibits on the lip, moreover, are so small, that they could 

 only have allowed the passage of very small tentacles. And worse 

 than all, what a huge ovarian aperture ! No crinoid ever had 

 such. M. Vollborth continually calls it the anus of the animal, not 

 considering that in all such animals the anus is situated very near 

 the mouth, never in the deeper-seated parts ; in fact, in Pentremites 

 it is in the mouth itself. But in Sphceronites and Cryptocrinites this is 

 still more striking ; in both, at the point of the five valves which 

 close the ovarian aperture, there are five openings, just as in the mi- 

 nute ovarian plates of the Cidarites and other Echinodermata. Who 

 will hereafter seek in them for cloacal excretions } 



The Cystidece are essentially distinguished from the Crinoidea by 

 these ovarian apertures ; this M. Von Buch states that he shall al- 

 ways maintain, and to have explained it is certainly of some service. 

 Leonhard and Br onus Jahrhuchfur Geologie, SfC. 



ON THE ORIGIN OF INFUSORIA AND MUCOR. 



In the * Ann. des Sci. Nat.' 1845, Zool. p. 182, Dr. M. F. Pineau 

 describes the first origin of infusoria and of mould, which resemble 

 one another so much on their first appearance, that it is impossible 

 to determine what will become an infusorium, what a mould. We 

 shall here merely communicate one of the cases relating to the man- 

 ner in which Penicilliiim glaucum is formed ; as in the other cases 

 enumerated, the observer could not follow the originating mould to 

 its perfect development, and was consequently unable to determine it. 



An infusion of bread exhibited up to the sixth day at a tempera- 

 ture of 10° to 12° R. the appearance of a considerable production of 

 Bacterium Termo, Vibrio lineola and Monas lens. Soon after this pe- 

 riod acid fermentation commenced, when all these animals died, and 

 the liquid became covered with a uniform granular pellicle. The 

 surface of the piece of bread was also covered with granulations, and 

 numerous particles, more or less in the granular state, were seen 

 floating about in the water. On the following day traces of a sepa- 

 ration in the form of a network with polyangular meshes 0*003 mil- 

 limeters broad were noticed in the granular mass covering the sur- 

 face. A similar formation of small globules also took place in the 

 granular substance on the bread. After twelve hours these globules 

 possessed well-defined outlines and began to assume an oval form. 

 Small isolated patches consisting of considerably larger oval globules, 

 difficult to separate from one another, likewise floated about. A few 

 hours afterwards the liquid contained a number of micodermic glo- 

 bules which had evidently originated from the above patches ; these 

 globules now expanded into filaments and formed the Penicillium 

 glaucum. In the same manner this Penicillium likewise formed on 

 milk; but the author could not observe what Turpin has said re- 



