Linncean Society » 243 



he has added several species to the Catalogue already published, and 

 has corrected and verified many of his previous observations*. He 

 is now about to publish a series of ffty coloured lithographic draw- 

 ings of the birds of the peninsula of India, to be entitled ' Illustra- 

 tions of Indian Ornithology ;' the drawings to be of the size of those 

 accompanying the Catalogue, but the colouring to be more highly 

 finished. They will be struck off both on royal 8vo and 4to sized 

 paper, and the price will be respectively 20 and 25 rupees, or 21. 

 and 21. \0s. We trust, as the work is limited, that it will meet 

 with encouragement from the ornithologists of his own country. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



LINN.EAN SOCIETY. 



December 21, 1841.— E. Forster, Esq., V.P., in the Chair. 



Read an extract of a letter from WiUiam Griflith, Esq., F.L.S., 

 to R. H. Solly, Esq., F.L.S., dated Serampore, the llth of October 

 1841, containing the following observations : — 



" In Santalum the ovulum consists of a nucleus and an embryo- 

 sac, prolonged both beyond the apex and base of the nucleus ; the 

 albumen and embryo are developed in the exserted part above the 

 septum ; the mass of the embryo is developed directly from the ve- 

 sicle, which is the termination of a pollen tube ; the seed (albumen) 

 has no other proper covering than the incorporated upper separable 

 part of the embryo-sac. 



" In Osyris the ovulum is reduced to a nucleus and an embryonary 

 sac, prolonged exactly in the same directions as in Santalum, but not 

 to such a degree anteriorly ; this anterior portion resembling exactly 

 the unchanged part of the sac of Santalum below the septum. The 

 albumen and embryo are formed outside the sac, and are absolutely 

 naked, or whatever covering they may have did not enter into the 

 composition of the ovulum." 



Mr. Griffith adds, " I have lately looked at Isoetes capsularis, 

 Roxb. ; it is an instructive plant, for it shows that botanists are 

 mistaken in their supposition as to the male. In Roxburgh's plant 

 the contents of the sporangium are sometimes of two sorts, but both 

 have the same origin, both are precisely similarly constituted, except 

 perhaps as to contents ; and the largest of these, the males of authors, 

 become afterwards like the others, but larger. There can be no doubt 

 that in all these plants the true sporules or seeds are those produced 

 by division of an original simple cell or its contents. Isoetes and 

 Azolla prove too a thing of some importance, that the dissimilar 

 organs which have so puzzled botanists may have a similar origin. 

 The true male of Isoetes will probably turn out to be the oblong, 

 cordate, fleshy laminae above the female. On the male my observa- 

 tions were stopped by indisposition. As a male it is certainly ano- 

 malous ; it is probably, I conjecture, developed originally within the 



* Catalogue of the Birds of the Peninsula of India, by T. C. Jerdon. 

 Madras, 1839. 



