$|JK M. C. G. Ehrenberg's Observatkms on the 



was general throughout the province of Padua, that blood-red) 

 spots were observed on all kinds of food. Mr Sette ascertained^ 

 that this appearance was owing to a small red-coloured mush- 

 room, belonging to the genus Mycoderma of Persoon. De 

 Candolle, in 1825, observed the surface of the Mnrten Lake in* 

 southern Switzerland of a red colour. This beautiful appeai^ 

 ance he ascertained to be caused by a minute plant, a species 06 

 Oscillatoria, which he named from its colour rubescens. Ifc 

 was chemically examined, and found to contain, 1. A red resi- 

 nous matter ; 2. A green resinous matter ; 3. A large propocji 

 tion of jelly ; and* 4. some earthy salts and oxide ol iron. Ther 

 chemists concluded' that the colouring matter of the Murten^ 

 Lake was an organic animal matter ; and as it was an oscilla- 

 toria, they concluded that the oscillatorise were to be considered 

 as belonging to the animal kingdom. 



Here we have only to reflect that the larger mushrooms, and 

 even more highly organized plants themselves, contain what is 

 called animal matter in their composition ; that Alexander Von 

 Humboldt long before, by means of nitric acid, changed them 

 into a fatty substance ; and that many aquatic plants as well as 

 animals produce calcareous deposits, a fact circumstantially re- 

 lated by Schweigger, in his observations on natural history made 

 during his travels. It does not, therefore, seem consonant with 

 experience, unconditionally to determine the nature of any 

 body by its chemical quality ; and how far the infusion may 

 have been blended with the oscillatoriae during the chemical 

 process, may, moreover, have escaped observation. oi aoiiosi 



Further, I have in another place proved that the simfpT^ 

 animals are distinguished from plants by more determinate cha* 

 racters than the chemical composition. 10 1bi 



In addition to this, it is remarked that the appearance of 

 sunshine causes the oscillatoriae to rise to the surface of the 

 water, and its disappearance causes them to return and sink to 

 the bottom. — Mem. de la Soc. Phys. et cP Hist. Nat. Geneve, 

 iii. p. 30. The cause of the latter appearance may, indeed^jJbe 

 a disengagement of gas. -lA si'^idttsX ni ,»hfriw bnu ^rrnoff 



Bory de St Vincent, in Diet. Class., calls these oscillatoriae 

 Osc. Pharaonis ; but the reason for suppressing the old name, 

 because there is another red kind of the same species which has 

 a different name, is just as untenable as the reason for assigning 



