Observations on the Lancelot. 381 



stalks are so strong that the reapers are much hindered by 

 them. Its extirpation is scarcely ever effected, for where the 

 least particle of root is left, new shoots will grow." 



I think this natural description decidedly favourable to the 

 yeneratio cequivoca. The seeds of the plants which spring 

 up after the combustion of a forest, could hardly have been 

 preserved for thousands of years, so near the surface of the 

 ground as to have been accessible to atmosperic influences ; 

 and the means by which they would have been transported to 

 the spot directly after the conflagration, cannot, in many cases 

 be pointed out, with any degree of probability. 



Though, therefore, the "omne vivum ex ovo" may now-a- 

 days be considered as presiding over the great majority of 

 cases, yet there are many, in my opinion, which form an ex- 

 ception to it, — a sufficient number to exclude it as a general 

 rule, and to lead us, from what we may observe even now, to 

 the same conclusion as I before arrived at by analogical de- 

 duction, namely, that there was a time to which that rule did 

 not at all apply. 



Weimar, April 4th, 1838. 



Art. V. Some Observations on the Lancelot, (Amphioxus lanceo- 

 latus). By Jonathan Couch, Esq. F.L.S. 



So little is known of that singular little fish, the lancelot, 



Amphioxus lanceolatus. 

 Amphioxus lanceolatus, (Yarrell's Br. F. vol. ii. p. 468), that 

 even a small addition to what is contained in the ' History of 

 British Fishes' may be regarded as interesting : the more es- 

 pecially as there is reason to suppose that our further acquain- 

 tance with its habits will be the result rather of accidental 

 opportunity than research. 



A narrative of the circumstances attending my first acquain- 

 tance with this species, will be found in Mr. Yarrell's work 

 above referred to ; but a slight correction of that account is 

 necessary, not only for the sake of that accuracy which it is 

 no less Mr. Yarrell's wish than my own, to observe, — but al- 

 so because the error is connected with what, from the circum- 

 stances under which I have had the good fortune to discover 



