Miscellaneous. 69 



Loligo media, var. — easily distinguished by its greater propor- 

 tionate length of body, and by the shortness of its tentacula, from 

 the true L. Media ; in the form of the fin ternating its mantle, it 

 strongly resembles Loligo subulata. A few specimens, obtained on 

 the coast of Down by the late J. Montgomery, Esq., were submitted 

 to Mr. Ball's inspection by W. Thompson, Esq.* 



December 9. — Mr. Lloyd exhibited a specimen of the Vege- 

 table Flannel described in p. 359 of our 4th volume, brought by 

 him from Berlin. He at the same time laid on the table of the 

 Academy a specimen of a very similar substance, which he had re- 

 ceived from Sir John Herschel, and which was found investing the 

 rocks at the mouth of one of the rivers of Southern Africa. It re- 

 sembles the other very much in external appearance, except that the 

 fibres are coarser, and more compactly matted together. It appears 

 to consist almost entirely of conferva, but apparently of a different 

 species. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



ON DATISCA CANNABJNA AND IMPREGNATION. 



Dr. Fresenius has observed that in Datisca cannabina, when female 

 plants remain isolated, they are able nevertheless to produce ripe 

 fruit in abundance ; and he thinks he is justified in concluding that 

 this and other purely female forms are, in the absence of male organs, 

 endowed with the capability of developing, by a purely vegetative 

 process, the highest vital product, the terminal bud. In the summer 

 of 1837 a female specimen of the above plant in the Frankfort bota- 

 nical garden, developed a stem from its root which now bears male 

 flowers also. — Linncea, Part III. 1839. 



ON A NEW GENUS OF CEPHALOPODA. 



M. Eschricht has given in the Transactions of the Academy of 

 Copenhagen a description of a highly remarkable Cephalopod from 

 Jacobshavn, in Greenland, as a new genus, under the name Cirro- 

 teuthis Millleri, with the following character : " Octopus suctoriis 

 minimis unam seriem in quovis brachio formantibus ; brachiis cir- 



* Since the foregoing was written, Mr. Ball was favoured with an in- 

 spection of Cuttle-fish bones, found at different times on Magilligan Strand, 

 county of Derry, by Mr. Hyndman, of Belfast. They seem to be those of 

 Sepia rupellaria, figured in Ferussac's third plate of Sepia. His attention 

 was also directed to beaks of Cuttle-fish, found in the stomachs of Delphi- 

 nus melas and Hyperoodon bidens. They belonged to a species of Cepha- 

 lopod he has not yet determined. As he purposes writing a monograph of 

 the Cephalopoda of the Irish seas, he requests information on the subject 

 from all who can afford it. 



