84. 



Sacculina, and is in reply to and correction of M. Gerbe. 

 Dr. Van Beneden shows that M. Gerbe had mistaken the 

 whole egg for the body which produces the yelk^ and that 

 the egg of Sacculina cannot be compared to that of Birds 

 at all; nor is there anything in this egg representing the 

 curious "vitelline body^^ of the egg of spiders and some 

 Myriapods, which is very variable and even accidental in 

 occurrence. 



Dr. Van Beneden^s series of researches, as well as his prize 

 essay on the ovum in various classes of animals, Avill repay 

 careful study, and place the whole subject, which is now of 

 such vast interest and importance, within the reading of 

 those who have the use of the French but not of the German 

 language. Their chief recommendation lies, however, in 

 their great originality, and the important new considerations 

 they contain. 



Miscellaneous. — Dr. Greef 's paper on 'New Fresh-water Radio- 

 laria' is noticed by Mr. Archer in another part of the journal, 

 whilst Prof. Kupffer's letter to Prof. Max Schultze on the 

 ' Kinship of Ascidians and Vertebrates ' also appears amongst 

 the memoirs. Both these papers were published in ' Schultze^s 

 Archiv,' 4th part, 1869. 



New Coffee Fungus. — The Rev. M. J. Berkeley forwards to 

 the ' Gardener's Chronicle ' a letter from the well-known 

 botanist, Mr. Thwaites, of Ceylon, in which he speaks of the 

 consternation caused among the coifee-planters of that island 

 in consequence of the rapid increase of a parasitic fungus in 

 the coffee-plantations, causing the leaves to fall off before 

 their proper time, and endangering the safety of the crop. It 

 is a singular fact that among more than one thousand species 

 of fungus which have been received in this country from 

 Ceylon this particular one does not occur ; not only is it 

 an entirely new species, but it is with difficulty referable to 

 any recognised section, being intermediate between the true 

 moulds and the Uredos. Mr. Berkeley establishes for it a 

 new genus Hermileia. — Nature. 



