272 EXTRACTS FROM THE FOREIGN PERIODICALS. 



rest ; others ascend into the clouds, and never stop. They know how to choose 

 a favourable period for their passage, to direct their course, and to find the same 

 spots which they have already frequented. A Blue Martin, so marked as to be 

 easily recognized, has been known to return ten successive years to build in a 

 box prepared for the purpose, and a Red-tailed Falcon (F. borealis), remarkable 

 for its plumage having accidentally become white, has, for ten consecutive 

 winters, taken possession of an old Fir in the district of Colleton, in Carolina. 



Many birds migrate by day, but still more, as the Herons, Snipes, Rails, &c, 

 fly by night, the first continually screaming, the others in silence. 



The arrivals and departures of birds form one of the best prognostics of the state 

 of the seasons, and Capt. Parry informs us of the anxiety with which the 

 Esquimaux await the appearance of the Snowy Longspurs ( ' Plectrophanes nivalis). 

 The Fishing Eagle announces, to the inhabitants of the borders of rivers in the 

 north, the period of the arrival of the fish ; and the note of the Carolina Nightjar 

 (Vociferator Cardinensis, N.W.) informs the farmer that the time for sowing 

 the corn is arrived. — Bibliotheque Universelle de Geneve, Jan. 1837. 



BOTANY. 



2. On Lythrum alternifolium, by M. Boreau. — Towards the close of last 

 century an amateur of Botany found, near Dijon, a Lythrum different from ' all 

 the then known species. A specimen of this plant, preserved in the herbarium 

 of M. Vallot, was transmitted to the late M. Persoon, who described it as 

 L. nummular icefolia (Syn., pi. 2.2. p. 8.). In 1830 MM. Lorey and Duret, at 

 that time preparing the Flore de la Cote d'Or, submitted the plant to M. De 

 Candolle, who described it under the name of L. alternifolium, pointing out 

 that it offered characters tending to relate it to E. hyssopifolium and E. 

 Grcefferi. This description was copied into theFlore de la Cote d'Or (2. 1. p. 348. 

 fig. 2), accompanied by a figure. Later M. Mutel did not hesitate to admit this 

 plant as a legitimate species, and he inserted it in his Flore Francaise (torn, i., 

 p. 379). Up to that time, indeed, this plant not having been again met with, 

 no one had ever been able to solve the question proposed by M. Lorey, viz., 

 whether this plant was not a mere sport of Nature. 



It was therefore with great pleasure that in August 1835 I perceived on the 

 border of a stream, near Nevers, a plant reminding me of the species figured in 

 the Flore de la Cote d' Or ; but in attempting to gather this singular plant, I 

 found that it was attached, by its lower part, to a stalk of Lythrum salicaria ! 

 The top of the stem having been cut, it had developed lateral buds, which, 

 instead of producing a continuous spike, had only formed a few axillary flowers. 

 In fact, in the normal state of L. salicaria the inflorescence is always intermixed 

 with a greyish pubescence ; the flowers have cordiform bracts, whose alternate 

 disposition is especially observable at the top of the spike. Thus, if we suppos* 



