196 Scientific Intelligence — Botany. 



grapher has closely studied these red spots, and he believes them to 

 be, not as M. Sette supposes, microscopic fungi, but animalculae of 

 inferior degree, a monade to which he has given the name of Monas 

 prodigiosa, on account of their extreme smallness. These little 

 beings appear as corpuscles, almost round, of on(i three-thousandth 

 to one eight-thousandth of a line in length ; transparent when sepa- 

 rately examined, but in a mass of the colour of blood. M. Ehren- 

 berg calculates, that in the space of a cubic inch there are from 

 46,656,000,000,000 to 884,836,000,000,000 of these monades.— 

 (Medical Times, No. 497, vol. xix., April 1849.) 



11. I'lie Oyster. — M. de Quatrefages has recently ascertained 

 that, contrary to the common opinion, tiie sexes are separate in the 

 oysters. M. Blanchard's observations confirm those of M. de 

 Quatrefages. In his investigations into the Nervous System of 

 MoUusca, he has had occasion to examine a great number of these 

 animals, and in the proper season he has always found the eggs and 

 the spermatozoa isolated in different individuals. — (American Jour- 

 nal of Science and Arts, vol. vii.. No. 21, p. 437.) 



12. Process of 'preparing the Spawning Beds by Fishes. — The 

 process of preparing the spawning beds is curious. The two fish 

 come up together to a convenient place, shallow and gravelly. Here 

 they commence digging a trench across the stream, sometimes making 

 it several inches deep. In this the female deposits her eggs or ova ; 

 and she having lefttiie bed, the male takes her place and deposits his 

 spawn on the ova of the female. The difference may be, perhaps, 

 easily exemplified by the soft and hard roe of a herring, — the for- 

 mer being that of the male, and without this the hard roe or ova of 

 the female fish would be barren. When the male has performed his 

 share of the work, they both make a fresh trench immediately above 

 the fornur one, thus covering up the spawn in the first trench with 

 the gravel taken out of the second. The same process is repeated 

 till the whole of their spawn is deposited, when the fish gradually 

 work their way down to the salt water to recruit their lost strength 

 and energy. 



The spawn is thus left to be hatched in due time, but is some- 

 times destroyed by floods, which bury it too deep, or sweep it en- 

 tirely away ; at other times it is destroyed by want of water, a dry sea- 

 son reducing the river to so small a size as to leave the beds exposed 

 to the air. The time required to hatch the eggs depends much on the 

 state of the weather; in warm seasons they are hatched much 

 quicker than in cold. The details I have here given are very im- 

 perfect ; but, perhaps, they may induce those interested in the sub- 

 ject to read a little work published by Mr Young, the result of his 

 observations and experience for many years. — (Field Notes and 

 Tour in Sutherland.! by Charles St John, vol. i. p. 55.) 



BOTANV. 



13. The Tfistrihutioii of Flovjerg In a Garden. — Amongst the 



