Natural History. 397 



14. Animalcuhe of Conferva Comoides. — M. Bose read a report to 

 the Royal Academy of Sciences, in the name of a commission, of a 

 Memoir of M. Gaillon, of Dieppe, relative to that species of marine 

 conferva which M. Decandolle has ranged in the genera ceramion, 

 and which Dillwyn has figured under the name of Conferva Comoides. 



M. Gaillon having observed at very short intervals for a whole 

 year the filaments of the Conferva Comoide saw the green corpuscules, 

 which are sometimes ovoide and sometimes square, and which form 

 the central line, leave the filaments of themselves, move slowly or 

 rapidly, change their direction, and act indeed like the animalcula 

 of infusions, observed by Muller. Then taking entire filaments of the 

 conferva comoide, he forced the animalcula? to separate before their 

 time, and observed the same phenomenon. Such is the necessity of 

 association, that as soon as the young ones can, they place themselves 

 end to end in a line, and then exude a mucus, which, becoming 

 membranous, envelopes them entirely. The bifurcations are formed 

 in the same manner. — Ann. de Chimie, xxiv. 208. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Mr. John Curtis has in the press the first No. of his Illustrations 

 of English Insects. We understand the intention of the author is 

 to publish highly-finished figures of such species of insects (with . 

 the plants upon which they are found,) as constitute the British 

 genera, with accurate representations of the parts on which the 

 characters are founded, and descriptive letter-press to each plate, 

 giving, as far as possible, the habits and economy of the subjects 

 selected. The work will be published monthly, to commence the 

 first of January, 1824. 



Mr. Frost intends publishing a Quarterly Botanical Journal, with 

 occasional plates. 



A geographical, statistical, and historical description of the 

 Empire of China, and its Dependencies: by Julius Klaproth, mem- 

 ber of the Asiatic Societies of London and Paris ; of the Royal 

 Society of Gottingen ; of the Imperial Society of Naturalists, in 

 Moscow ; is preparing for publication, in 2 vols., quarto. 



