232 Scientific Intelligence. — Zoology. 



ZOOLOGY. 



20. Ehrenberg's Discovery of Stomachs in the Baccillarice. 

 Meyen and other well known naturalists refer the Baccillariae to 

 the vegetable kingdom, because no one had hitherto observed 

 them to take in any coloured substance, like the other infu- 

 soria. Recently, however, Ehrenberg has succeeded in feeding- 

 various species belonging to the genera, Navicnla, Gompho- 

 nema, Ai-throdesmus, and Closterium. Vesicular ventral sacs, 

 similar to those of the other polygastrical infusoria, were de- 

 tected. " I could count," says that learned naturalist Wieg- 

 mann, " with the greatest distinctness, from six to seven ventral 

 sacs completely filled with blue colouring matter, in the clear 

 middle part of a Navicula gracialis, exhibited by Ehrenberg. 

 With this discovery, therefore, the most perfect proof has been 

 afforded of their coincidence with the Polygastrica, which, how- 

 ever, the peculiar gliding motion that was perceptible in many 

 of them had before sufficiently indicated ; which motion cannot 

 be compared with the lively motions of the sporules of Algae, 

 or with the motions of Oscillatoria. 



21. Experiments on the Plague. — Admiral Roussin writes 

 to M. Arago : " You will doubtless hear of the heroic Dr 

 Bulard, who has studied the plague at Smyrna in the most 

 courageous manner. He slept in the same beds with the dis- 

 eased, and wore their clothes while they were yet warm ; he also 

 inoculated himself with the matter of the sores; and all this with 

 impunity, although two criminals exposed to the same experi- 

 ments died, the one in seven, and the other in five days. I must 

 inform you, at the same time, that this daring observer is of 

 opinion that the plague is almost always contagious by contact." 



22. White Phosphorescent Tract of Sea in the Persian Gulf. 

 — William Newham, Esq., read to the Royal Asiatic So- 

 ciety of London an extract of a letter from a naval officer who 

 sailed on board the sloop Clive, from Bombay to the Persian 

 Gulf, in 1832, detailing a curious appearance of the sea. In 

 the month of August, about eight at night, while the ship was 

 rapidly advancing with a high sea, they were suddenly surround- 

 ed with water as white as milk. The colour near the ship was 

 of a dead white. The water, when taken up in a bucket, did 

 not differ from ordinary sea water. On agitating it, it became 



