Miscellaneous. 77 



interesting account of its habits : — " We had two of them for some 

 time in our possession ; the first specimen which is sent home died, 

 I fear from starvation, for I was told that they feed on roots and nuts ; 

 but this I found was a mistake, for they are carnivorous and feed on 

 moths and flies, at least the last we had did so ; it used to take the 

 moths, &c. by their two wings, holding them by its fore paws; it ate 

 the bodies, and the wings it threw away. I never saw it drink. It 

 generally slept during the day rolled up like a ball, but of a night it 

 became very lively, and was fond of climbing branches of trees ; it 

 would hang suspended by its tail to a small branch, and suddenly 

 jump to another. They were both found by men while ploughing, 

 lying in a nest of grass and fur in a state of stupor. The last lived 

 for many months, and made its escape from us." Capt. Grey adds, 

 " it was a great pet." — J. E. Gray. 



NEW BRITISH PLANT. 



Mr. Robert Embleton of Embleton, in the county of Northumber- 

 land, has sent me a specimen of the Majanthemum bifolium (DeC), 

 Concallaria bifolia (Linn.), gathered in the woods at Howick in that 

 county. He states that it also occurs at Kenwood, and that he has 

 every reason to believe that it is truly indigenous in both places. 

 As this plant is found in similar situations in France, Germany and 

 Sweden, I can see no reason for doubting its being a native of Bri- 

 tain.— C. C. B. 



NOTE ON HOM030CLADIA ANGLICA, AG.* 



The following remarks on Homoeocladia anglica (Microcoleus ma- 

 rinus, Harv.) will, I hope, tend to remove the confusion which has 

 prevailed respecting the name of that plant. When in 1835 I first 

 found it near Torquay, Mrs. Griffiths and myself thought that it was 

 a species of Schizonema : one specimen was then forwarded to Dr. 

 Greville, but probably overlooked, as he made no remarks upon it. 

 Mr. Harvey, to whom I sent another, named it Oscillatoria chthono- 

 plastes, a. ; but as I subsequently pointed out to him that it had 

 none of the characters of Oscillatoria, and also differed in almost 

 every respect from Conf. vaginata, ' E. Bot.,' with which it was 

 united in the 'Br. Flora,' he has in his ' Manual' described it as a 

 species of Microcoleus, Desm., under the specific name of marinus. 



In the meantime, Mrs. Griffiths and Mr. Borrer examined it to- 

 gether and considered it a Schizonema, whence Mr. Borrer gave it 

 the name of S. xylodes. Afterwards suspecting that it might be 

 Homoeocladia anglica, I requested Mr, Borrer to compare its structure 

 with a specimen of H. martiana sent him by Agardh, and I here sub- 

 join the result of his examination : — " I have examined, as well as I 

 could, the ' Sch. xylodes,' and Agardh's specimen of Homoeocladia 

 martiana. The structure is surely the same in both, a tube contain- 

 ing (possibly composed of) oscillatoria-like threads, which seem more 

 broken into short bits in Agardh's plant than in the other, the ' frus- 

 tules,' I suppose, and the white interstices, represented in Agardh's 



* Read before the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. 



