358 Miscellaneous. 



inch. lin. 

 Length of body and head without the arms . 3 



of the longest arms 1 9 



of the tentacula 4 5 



of the dorsal plate 8 



Breadth at the root of the arms 1 



of the arms 9 



M. Delle Chiaje possesses one double the size of this. — Bulletin 

 de VAcad. de Bruxelles, Jan. 1839. 



[We do not see how the existence of a Cephalopod in the Medi- 

 terranean with one eyelid inadequate to protect the eye-ball is con- 

 clusive against the use assigned by Mr. Owen to a peculiarly perfect 

 defensive palpebral organization in a Cephalopod inhabiting seas 

 which in the summer are crowded with spicular crystals of ice. — 

 Edit.] 



ON THE NEMATOIDEA. BY DR. CREPLIN. 



I take this opportunity of drawing the attention of naturalists to a 

 law which from many years' personal observations, as well as from 

 those of others, I have constantly found to hold good : viz. that a 

 Nematoidean living singly in a cyst, inclosed on all sides, or enve- 

 loped closely in a membrane, never possesses sexual organs. 



Rudolphi everywhere states, when speaking of Nematoidea so in- 

 closed, that he had never been able to discover generative organs in 

 any of them. It is true that he mentions in his * Entoz. Hist. Nat.* 

 ii. p. 152. a sexual difference in Ascaris (e mesenterio Cotti scorpii) 

 angulata, but he does not prove by his remarks the accuracy of his as- 

 sertion ; and when Zeder * Naturgeschichte,' § 53, 54 talks of an ova- 

 rium and probable seminal vessels in his Capsularia, he by no means 

 proves that the organs observed possess the functions he ascribes 

 to them. I confine myself at present to this short notice without 

 enumerating those species which I have examined, as I think of 

 describing them elsewhere, and take the liberty of requesting hel- 

 minthologists to be so kind as to give publicity to their observations, 

 with a view to the confirmation or refutation of the universality of the 

 above law. — Wiegmann's Archiv, vol. iv. part V. 



[We may observe that the organization of the incysted micro- 

 scopic Entozoon (Trichina spiralis, O.), discovered by Mr. Owen in 

 the human muscles, accords with the generalization enunciated by 

 Dr. Creplin.— Edit.] 



ACTION OF FROST ON PLANTS. 



M. Morren has recently laid before the Academy of Brussels an 

 account of his investigations relative to the action of cold on plants, 

 the results of which are, that how^ever delicate the organization of the 

 plants, not one of their elementary parts is ruptured by the action 

 of the frost, but the functions are entirely deranged ; thus the organs 

 of respiration are filled with water, and those of nutrition with air; 

 so that the natural order is perverted, and death is the consequence. 



