SOO Scientific Intelligence. — Botany. 



the Irish Elk, the fossil remains of which are found in alluvial 

 deposites of comparatively modern date. Many years ago, 

 skulls and single bones of this gigantic and elegant species were 

 collected and described by naturalists, but it is not more than 

 four or five years since nearly perfect fossil skeletons were met 

 with. Of these, two only have been preserved, the one depo- 

 sited in the Royal Museum of the University of Edinburgh, 

 the other in the collection of the College of Surgeons in Dublin. 

 As the specimen in the Edinburgh Museum was for a time the 

 only one in any collection, we had a drawing and engraving 

 made from it, and of which a copy is given in the present num- 

 ber of the Journal (Plate II.) It is 6 feet high, 9 feet long, and 

 in height, to the top of the right horn, 9 feet 7i inches. Re- 

 mains of this deer have been met with not only in England, 

 Ireland, and the Isle of Man, but also in France, Germany, 

 and Italy ; and in all these countries in similar geognostic si- 

 tuations, — thus shewing that the species, in all probability, 

 lived about the same time in Britain, Ireland, and the Conti- 

 nent of Europe. 



BOTANY. 



38. Pluvial Trees. — In the old accounts of travellers in Ame- 

 rica, related also by Thevet in his Cosmography, mention is 

 made of a tree which attracted the vapours of the atmosphere, 

 and resolved them into rain among the parched deserts. These 

 accounts were regarded as fabulous. In Brazil there has been 

 found of late a tree, the young branches of which exude drops 

 of water, which fall almost like rain. This tree, to which Lean- 

 der has given the name of Cubea pluviosa, is referred by M. 

 Decandolle to the genus Ccesalpinia, belonging to the family of 

 Leguminosae, in his Prodromus, vol. ii. p. 483. Other vegeta- 

 bles also, such as Calamus rotang, and the climbing lianas, the 

 vine, and other sarmentaceous plants, afford drops of water in 

 abundance, at the period of the sap, especially when they are 

 cut. 



39- Sensitive Tree. — The genus Coosalpinia, which furnishes 

 the dyewoods of Pernambucca and Sappan, also presents a spe- 

 cies, the leaves of which are nearly as sensible to contact, as the 

 sensitive plants of Malabar ; it is the Ccesalpinia mimosoides of 

 Lamarck. 



