222 QUARTERLY CHRONICLE. 
makes some very interesting remarks, when speaking of 
Actinophrys, with regard to the production of vacuoles ; he 
regards both the nucleus and the contractile vesicle in the 
Rhizopods as furnishing but unimportant characters for 
specific distinction. ‘The paper is illustrated by a carefully 
drawn plate, which however, has a rather confused appearance. 
The same number of the ‘ Annals’ contains an interesting 
account of the Nigua, Chigoe, Jigger, or sand-flea of tropical 
America, translated from a paper, by Professor H. Karsten, 
published in the ‘ Bulletin of the Soc. Nat. Moscow.* The 
animal is excessively small, being only half the size of 
the ordinary flea, but nevertheless manages to make itself 
excessively annoying by burrowing under the toe-nails of 
unfortunate travellers, and producing inflammation. The 
author deseribes minutely the external skeleton of the animal, 
and its penetrating, sexual, and other organs. 
Professor Gulliver continues hisobservations“‘On Raphides,” 
and the more they are extended the more they would seem 
to show the importance of these beautiful objects, and their 
organic cells, as natural characters in systematic botany. In 
his “ practical applications,’ he mentions that, if any British 
Dicotyledon be found abounding in raphides, it must be 
referred to one or other of the three orders Balsaminacee, 
Gahacez, or Onagracez. And thus these orders of our 
plants, being so isolated from their allies of other orders, 
are eminently entitled to be characterised as raphis-bearing 
plants. He has figured the raphides in the ovule of Onagra- 
cee, and states that this character is present in the seed- 
leaves, thenceforth in the leaves, and generally diffused 
throughout the species at all periods of its existence. Hence 
he considers that, when the diagnostic holds good, as between 
an Onagrad and Hippurid, there is no other single difference 
at once so fundamental and universal between the plarits in 
question as that those of one order are raphis-bearers, while 
the others are not so. 
But as we have yet seen no confirmation, extension, or 
correction of his researches, we may remark that at this 
season materials are bountifully spread before us for ex- 
amination, and which might be made the subject of very 
interesting and instructive inquiries in the country. Indeed, 
the biography of species, and especially observations. on the 
cell-life, of our native plants, would be a very delightful 
rural pursuit, and not unlikely to prove useful to science, 
thus affording a rational extension of country enjoyments, 
in which the ladies of our families might not only partici- 
pate, but probably assist in enlarging our knowledge of 
