Miscellaneous. %2}. 



The respiratoiy organs are covered by a tolerably thick membrane, 

 which is contracted between each of them, and prolonged in front and 

 behind in the form of a wide vessel recei\'ing the venous blood. Each 

 pulmonary sac is alternately raised or depressed by a double or triple 

 ligament, which rises perpendicularly and is attached to the pericar- 

 dium. When a portion of the heart is exposed, it is seen that its pul- 

 sations act upon the contractile ligaments, causing a pressure of the 

 pulmonary sacs, which forces the blood to rise in the pneumocardiac 

 vessels. This movement is aided by muscular pillars attached to the 

 upper and lower walls of the abdomen. 



From all these facts we must conclude, that in the pulmonary 

 Arachnida the venous blood circulates for a great portion of its course 

 in distinctly circumscribed canals ; that it passes into the abdominal 

 cavity as into a vast sinus, so as to penetrate thence into the respi- 

 ratory organs, whence it rises into the heart by means of a particular 

 mechanism. These facts lead us naturally to the conclusion that 

 analogous arrangements should be sought for in Crustacea and In- 

 sects. — Comptes Rendus, June 20, 1853, p. 1079. 



THE TIBETAN BADGER OF HODGSON. 



Mr. Hodgson having sent to the India House a specimen with its 

 skidl of his Taxidea leiicurus (Journ. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, xvi. 763. 

 1847), I have compared the skull with that of the various Badgers 

 in the Museum collection. I find all the Old-World Badgers (Meles) 

 have a moderate-sized triangular flesh tooth, and a very large four- 

 sided oblong tuberculous grinder in the upper jaw, which is rather 

 longer than broad, and the skull is rovmded behind. The nose of 

 the Tibetan Badger or Tumpha, Meles leticurus, is rather more taper- 

 ing and more compressed than that of the European Badger {Meles 

 Taxus^, which it most resembles. The Japanese Badger {Meles 

 auakuma) differs from both in having a much shorter skull and a 

 short, rather broad nose. 



The American Badgers {Taxidce, Waterhouse) have a very large 

 triangular flesh tooth, and an equally triangular tubercular grinder 

 in the upper jaw not exceeding the flesh tooth in size. The skull is 

 also much broader, more depressed and truncated behind. Of this 

 genus I only know a single species, T. Labradoria. — J. E. Gray. 



Note on the Germination of the Spores of the Uredines. 

 By L. R. TuLASNE. 



Some years since I made known * the origin and structure of the 

 organs known as the spores of these plants. I then showed that these 

 bodies, like the pollen grains of phanerogamous vegetables, are fur- 

 nished with a variable number of pores through which tubular fila- 

 ments afterwards pass, analogous, at least in appearance, with those 

 which are the first result of the germination of the spore of a Fungus. 



I have since indicatedf the jEcidiohim exanthematum, Ung., as a 



* Ann. des Sci. Nat. 3rd serie, t. vii. 



t Comptes Rendus, xxxii. March 31, 1851. 



