Uses of the Nectary and Corolla. 195 



I. 487. The slimy Secretion of the Folypi of Corals and 

 Go7gbri\?z is certainly acrid, and often painfully irritating to 

 the skin. They form, too, a slippery and treacherous footing. 

 When walking among dangerous rocks, covered for many 

 yards with these aggregate creatures, and other Radiata, I 

 have sometimes narrowly escaped serious falls. 



I. 355. The Mollusca, though destitute of a Skeleton, fashion 

 their Shells with more Correctness than the writer imagines. 

 Monsters and varieties will occasionally occur, and shells, in 

 their infancy, will present the aspect of genera to which their 

 inhabitants are not even remotely allied : but their thinness 

 and unfinished whorls easily point out their imperfect con- 

 dition, without leading conchologists into the [case supposed 

 in I. 355.]. 



I. 495. Bulla ligndria. — See Humphrey, Linncean Trans- 

 actions, ii. p. 15. tab. 2. Other shells [shelled molluscous ani- 

 mals] have the gizzard-like organ, as your correspondent will 

 see in the paper pointed out to him, which was written by 

 one of the most active collectors of his day. 



II. 69. The Spinning Slug is a distinct species, well de- 

 scribed in the Linncean Transactions, and beautifully figured 

 in the princely work of my friend the Baron de Ferussac. 

 In the Virgin Islands there is a common species of Cyclos- 

 toma, which, having given out a mucous thread, closes the 

 operculum, and swings by the thread when hardened by the 

 air. The creature is thus safe from ants and other enemies, 



II. 102. The account alluded to of the structure and 

 habits of the Nautilus and Trochus is fabulous and absurd. 



II. 73. This ^sterias seems to have been engraved from a 

 rude sketch. It bears a great resemblance to a species com- 

 mon in the Caribean seas. Dele " & b, a section of a small 

 bivalve shell." 



II. 154. I doubt the fact of star fish destroying oysters. 



I. 62. Erratum. — For " Polybrachione," read H Poly- 

 brachionia." — \_Lansdown Guilding. St. Vincent, May 1. 

 1830.] 



Art. VIII. Views on the Uses of the Nectary and Corolla in 

 Plants. By Mr. William Gardiner, Jun. 



It is with much diffidence that I submit to your readers the 

 following remarks on the uses of the corolla and nectary in 

 the vegetable economy, these remarks being derived solely 

 from observation ; while I believe that correct experiments, 



