Miscellany 



133 



diurnal Lepidoptera. We have every expectation that he, too, will be a credit to 

 the institution. 



Animals and Plants found in the Hot Springs of Soda 

 Creek, Ne'W Mexico. — In the springs, both hot and cold, confervc-e and a 

 few grasses grow ; no fish are found in them ; no Crustacea, except perhaps one 

 about \% inch long, which is found in the hot springs, and which has a hard 

 covering and rudimentaiy legs. The mixed crustacean, or whatever it may be, 

 is very much of the colour, size, and shape, of the kind found in Great Salt 

 Lake by Captain Fremont in 1 843-4, The temperature of the hottest springs 

 is 98° and 99° F. — Berthould in Proc. Acad. Nat. Sc. Phil., 1S66, p. 342. 



Eruption of Mount Vesuvius. — Our readers may be pleased to see 

 a copy of a little sketch which a friend has sent us from Naples, representing 

 the appearance of Vesuvius during the night of the 9th of December, as seen 

 from the opposite side of the Bay. It is from one of the little sketches in dis- 

 temper which are sold in Naples, but we have the assurance of our friend that 

 it gives a perfectly correct representation of the scene. We had applied to him 

 for a photograph of the scene, but lie found it impossible to get a satisfactory one. 



South African " Patch Hats." — Amongst the specimens recently 

 received at the Kew Museum from the late Paris Exhibition is a hat, of some 

 thing of the ordinaiy "deer-stalker" shape, from the Cape of Good Hope. 

 It was called a "patch hat," and at a first glance one might suppose it 

 to be made of the shola (^schynomene aspera, L. ) which is so much used 

 in the East Indies for hats and other light or ornamental articles ; but as 

 the shola does not grow in Africa, it was scarcely possible that the hat in 

 question could be produced from thai plant. Upon a closer examination 

 I found the material to be the tuberous root of an Erythrina (E. acantho- 

 carpa, Mey. ) which covers whole districts in some parts of South Africa, send- 

 ing its roots to such a depth in the ground as to make it almost impossible to 

 exterminate it ; consequently it is a most troublesome plant to the farmers in the 



