31 

 May Srd, 1877. 



Insect-tra2)2)ing Plants. — lleforring to Afajor Hall's interesting 

 papers, and the historical introduction thereto, on Plijsianthus 

 albeus, a plant which catches and kills large insects, and belongs to 

 the Asclcpiad order, the Hon. Secretary now sent a note to the 

 effect that several other Asclepiads had been long knoA?n to destroy 

 insects in the same manner. An American botanist, Dr. Earton of 

 Philadelphia, gave a paper in the thirty-ninth volume of the Philo- 

 sophical Magazine, wherein he mentions, among other plants, two 

 species of Asclepias which by the irritability of their stamens, cap- 

 ture and kill insects ; and accordingly those veiy plants wcu'o called 

 Muscicapac A sclepiadeae, to which interesting group Major Hall's 

 specimen must henceforth be consigned. ^Nothing is known of the 

 use of this destructive action. It can hardly be for any advantage 

 in the nutrition of the plant ; but perhaps may be subservient to its 

 fecundation, by conveying the pollen to the stigma. The <iucstioii 

 is one that might well engage the attention of persons who have 

 Asclepiads in cultivation, and who are inclined to make a good use 

 of their eyes. (Jf such observations Mr. Darwin has given an 

 adni irable example, in which he has shown, by micro-chemistry, 

 that the leaves of such plants as Dionoea and Drosera entrap and 

 kill insects, and by a process of true digestion convert this animal 

 prey to the nutriment of the plant. 



Nuclei in Blood-disk of Fishes. — The Hon. Sec. sent a few 

 remarks on Mr. Hammond's interesting paper. Should the accuracy 

 of his observations be confirmed and proved true of perfect and 

 healthy fish, the validity of Professor Savory's observations on the 

 red blood corpuscles of frogs and newts would not necessarily be 

 destroyed, though this excellent physiologist's conclusion that in all 

 Ovipara the nucleus is due to the death or escape of the corpuscles 

 from the body would be no longer tenable. It is conceivable that 

 there may be an essential ditferencc in this respect between fishes 

 and batrachians ; and, should this prove to be the case, it would be a 

 new and curious diagnostic between thes3 two classes of Verte- 

 brates. And then tlie question would only be similar to that which 

 was so much agitated upwaa-ds of a quarter of a century since, 

 concerning the structure of these corpuscles throughout the verte- 

 brate sub-kingdom. About that time one parly of physiologists, 

 following Hewson, ' declared that the nucleus is ijuite plain and 

 distinct, while another party, witli Dr. Young, Dr. Hodgskin, and 

 Mr. Lister, maintained that there is no nucleus. But the sub- 

 sequent researches of the Hon. Sec. had demonstrated that the dis- 

 putants on botli sides of the question were, as in the fable of the 

 Chameleon, both right and wrong ; for the regular blood-disks of 

 Mammals have no nuclei, while the blood-disks of lower Vertebrates 



