Miscellaneous. 403 



3. " On Fumarla micrantha and F. calgciua." By Mr. C. C. 

 Babington, M.A., F.L.S. &c* 



4. " On two new species of Jungermannia, and another new to 

 Britain." By Thomas Taylor, M.D. : communicated by Mr. Wil- 

 liam Gourlie, jun., Glasgow. 



5. " Notice of the new fossil plant, Lyginodendron Landsburgii, 

 Gourlie." By Mr. William Gourlie, jun. 



Mr. James Macnab exhibited a magnificent cluster of the male 

 catkins of a palm from one of the South Sea Islands, which Lady 

 Harvey had obtained from the captain of a vessel, and kindly allowed 

 to be shown to the Society. Its dimensions, when expanded, were 

 about three feet by three and a half, and it somewhat resembled an 

 ornamental grate-screen formed of shavings. 



April 13th. — Professor Graham in the Chair. 



The attention of the Society was chiefly directed to a donation by 

 William Brown, Esq., R.N., consisting of a miscellaneous collection 

 of plants and fruits from Canton river and Chusan, and from the 

 Cape and Prince's Island, including a collection of forty species of 

 Ericece from Simond's Bay and Table Mountain. 



The following papers were read : — 



1 . " Two Botanical Visits to the Reeky Linn and Den of Airly, 

 in April and June 1842." By Mr. William Gardiner, Dundee. 



2. "On the Diatomacece." No. VI. By Mr. Ralfs, Penzance. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 

 Note on a Verminiferous kind of Blood of a Dog, caused by a great 

 number of Hcematozoa of the genus Filaria. Communicated by 

 MM. Gruby and Delafond to the French Academy of Sciences. 

 Physiologists and anatomists have long since detected the presence 

 of certain entozoa in the nutritive fluid of cold-blooded animals, as, 

 for instance, frogs and fish. In the mammiferse, worms have some- 

 times been found in the blood ; but these worms had probably only 

 come there after having perforated the organs in which they had 

 developed themselves. It is of very great importance to physiology, 

 pathology, and natural history, to demonstrate, not merely the exist- 

 ence of entozoary worms in the blood, but moreover to prove their 

 constant circulation in that fluid, in animals which come near to man. 

 Now, since science is not as yet in possession of any example de- 

 monstrating conclusively the circulation of worms in the blood of 

 mammiferous animals, we are most anxious to communicate to the 

 Academy the discovery which we have made of Entozoa circulating 

 in the blood of a dog of a vigorous constitution, and in a state of 

 apparent good health.f 



These worms are from 3 to 5 milliemes of a millimetre in dia- 

 meter, and about 25 in length. The body is transparent and colour- 

 less. The anterior extremity is obtuse, and the posterior or caudal 



* See last Number of Annals. — Ed. 



t Observations, however, of this kind will be found described at pp. 48 

 and 49 of the 10th vol. of this Journal. — Ed. 



