XXVlll PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



of Infusoria, which received from the French Academy of Sciences 

 the Montyon prize for 1S62. Mr. Busk informs me that his papers 

 on the subject are considered as of the highest value. They were 

 originally published in Brown-Sequard's Journal de Physiologic, and 

 have stamped their author as a most acute and accurate observer. 

 The chief points of interest have been given in abstract in the 2nd 

 volume of the * Microscopic Journal ' (^pp. 176 and2S5), so that they 

 are readily accessible to English readers ; and they have been, it is 

 believed, generally adopted. Among cryptogamic plants, sexual 

 organs are now known to exist almost universally in the higher 

 orders, and their development and structure have been admirably 

 illustrated in numerous papers of Hofmeister, now collected in a 

 single volume, for an excellent translation of which we are indebted 

 to our Botanical Secretary and experienced cryptogamist, Mr. Cxirrey. 

 From the notes also that he has kindly communicated to me we learn 

 that, even here, Mai'siha and the smaU-spored Lycopodiace£e seem 

 to require further observation. On this subject (the germination of 

 Marsiha) Dr. Hanstein has pubKshed some observations which, 

 although not altogether new, are more complete and better illus- 

 trated than those of any previous observer. In the Lichens there 

 is absolutely no evidence of sexual organs ; for T\ilasne appears to 

 have given up his notion of the sexual nature of the spermatia, 

 which he now considers as gemmae, and such Mr. Currey fully be- 

 lieves to be the case. In Fungi, Hofmeister's observations on Tub^r, 

 and Dr. Bary's on Perono^pora, point to the probability of the exist- 

 ence of sexes ; but, nevertheless, few will disagree with Tulasne, 

 who, after noticing these observations, concludes, '•' ad hoc £evi non 

 longe processit notitia nostra de Fungonim organis sexualibus, si qua 

 sunt *' (Selecta Fungorum Carpologia, p. ISl). 



Parthenogenesis has, in insects, been fully established by the 

 ■writings of Siebold, Huxley, and others, and in Entomostraca by Mr. 

 Lubbock, and I know of nothing veiy new having been published 

 under that head. In plants Mr. Currey gave, in the Xatural History 

 Review, all that was known up to that date. Since that, very 

 great doubts have been thrown on the accui^acy of Karsten, who 

 professes to have so readily found in female Ccelebo^i/nes those 

 poUen-bearing organs which had escaped the most searching and 

 repeated scrutiny of E. Brown, F. Bauer, J. Smith, Eadlkofer.Deecke, 

 A. Braun, and others. A case analogous to that of the C<xhbo~ 

 gyne, noticed by Dr. T. Anderson in the last part of our Journal, 

 is that of a female Ahcria from S.E. Africa, which ripens its fruit 

 in the Botanical Garden of Calcutta, in the absence, as he believes, 



