Mr. W. S. MacLeay on his Antechinus Stuartii. 337 



classed together with the rotating currents of the Chara, Val- 

 lisneria, &c. This treatise, under the title of e Nouvelles ob- 

 servations sur la circulation dans les plantes/ is printed as an 

 appendix to the above prize-paper; and, in the 'Botanical 

 Register ' for 1839, p. 48, there is an extract from this im- 

 portant work of M. Schultz, under the title of e Circulation of 

 the blood in plants.' The author of this extract is anonymous, 

 probably because he very well knew that in this subject he was 

 not capable of forming any judgement ; the title alone shows 

 evidently that he knows nothing at all about the matter. 



The second point in this prize-paper to which I cannot 

 agree, is the bringing together of the most different formations 

 under the one name of latex- vessels. M. Schultz believes 

 that he has discovered that the bark as well as the wood con- 

 tains a peculiar vascular system, which forms the central point 

 of every development. In the ligneous fascicles of the mono- 

 cotyledons, M. Schultz considers the soft long cells which 

 are filled with a mucilaginous fluid, and which Mohl calls 

 vasa propria, as latex-vessels ; though it is so very easy, even 

 in succulent plants of this kind, to observe the true latex- 

 vessels near the ligneous bundles, and which have no simi- 

 larity to those in the interior of the bundles. M. Schultz even 

 considered the small cells of the ferns which are filled with 

 starch as latex-vessels ; they surround the fascicle of spiral 

 tubes, and are deposited on the inner surface of the bast- 

 tubes, &c. M. Schultz has by no means correctly understood 

 the peculiarity of the latex- vessels of the Euphorbiacea, which, 

 as I have long since shown, possess the structure of the bast- 

 tubes of the Apocynece and Asclepiadeae, and also occupy the 

 place of the bast-tubes (which are wanting in the Euphor- 

 biacece), and still contain latex, while the bast- tubes of the 

 Apocynece, which do not ramify, contain but very little latex ; 

 but here there is a true vascular system a little on the outside 

 of the bast-tubes, whose stems exhibit anastomoses, and con- 

 tain only a little opake latex. 



[To be continued.] 



XLII. — Additional Particulars respecting Antechinus Stu- 

 artii, a new Marsupial Quadruped. By W. S. MacLeay, 

 Esq., F.L.S., &c. 



To Richard Taylor, Esq. 

 Dear Sir, 

 Since I wrote you* concerning what I had reason at that 

 time to think might possibly prove to be a new quadruped 

 * See our preceding Number, p. 241. 

 Ann. $ Mag. N. Hist. Vol. viii. Z 



