EXTRACTS FROM FOREIGN SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. 



1. — Mr. M. A. Lefebvre, in a memoir contributed to the Entomological 

 Society of France, mentions having observed, while travelling in various parts of 

 Egypt, particularly in an excursion to the Oasis of Bahrych, an orthopterous in- 

 sect, which lives in the sands perfectly destitute of vegetation. He examined se- 

 veral species, each differently coloured according to the nature of the soil, which 

 they so exactly resembled that it was difficult to perceive them. What, therefore, 

 is the nourishment of animals like these, organized to exist upon living prey? 

 They are found in localities in which no herbivorous insect could exist, and Mr. 

 Lefebvre has never discovered the slightest vestige of vegetable or animal matter 

 with them. On the other hand, their elytrae and wings, being ill adapted to flight, 

 prevent the idea of their migrating like Crickets. Are they, then, reduced to 

 subsist upon the prey conveyed to them occasionally by the winds? or do they 

 live by devouring each other ? These are the questions which he has not been 

 able to resolve, notwithstanding his most patient and minute observations of this 

 singular insect. He has named it Eremiaphiles, from its peculiar habitat : some 

 species have already been figured in the great work on Egypt, but without descrip- 

 tions. Lefebvre has added several others, one particularly remarkable in the arti- 

 culations of the tarsi, which are four in number on the anterior feet, and three on 

 the two other pairs. This fact is extremely important, and offers a new objection 

 to the classification of entomology by the tarsi, which has also been shaken by 

 several analagous facts, and must ultimately be abandoned, notwithstanding its 

 convenience. The above observations have induced Lefebvre to constitute of this 

 species a new genus, which other general characters tend to induce. We regret 

 extremely that we are not, at this moment, able to give a more detailed description 

 of this extraordinary paradox in entomology. 



2. — On the Appearance or Disappearance of Plants in certain 

 Localities. — Mr. Weinmann, inspector of the Imperial Gardens of Pawlowsk, in 

 Russia, enumerates several striking instances of the above singular circumstance, 

 which hitherto appears quite inexplicable, or not observed by Botanists in general. 

 He states, among other occurrences of a similar nature, that during an uncommon 

 season of drought, a lake in the environs of Pawlowsk became dried up, and its 

 basin was shortly clothed with vegetation, but instead of the Juncus effusus, J. 

 lampoocarpus, J. tusonius and others of that family, which previously grew abund- 

 antly on its banks and sides, the dessicated bottom of the lake produced nothing 

 but the Scirpus acieularis, a plant unknown altogether in that locality. When 

 the severe frost destroyed vegetation the Scirpus acieularis totally disappeared, 

 and has not again vegetated on this spot. 



Some other plants which were common in the environs of this city eight years 



