Linnaan Society. *55 



is immediately resumed, and the temperature rises rapidly to the 

 natural standard. The hedgehog and the dormouse awake periodi- 

 cally from the sense of hunger, and the food thea taken conduces 

 to renewed lethargy. But frequent excitation from this state is 

 productive of great exhaustion, and is often fatal to the animal. 

 Severe cold, like other causes producing a painful impression, rouses 

 the hybernating animal from its state of lethargy ; and if continued, 

 induces a state of torpor, which ends in death. 



LINNAAN SOCIETY. 

 April 17.— A paper was read, entitled, " On the Imperfect Deve- 

 lopment of the Reproductive Organs in certain Species of Euphorbia 

 and 6'aji/iaga," by Mr. David Don, Libr. LS. 



From the imperfect development or entire nbortion of the pis- 

 tillum, most of the perennial species of Euphorbia are polygamous; 

 the terminal capitulum occupying the forks of the ramifications of 

 the panicle being generally male, while the lateral surrounding ones 

 are hermaphrodite, or occasionally female, as in Euphorbia hyberna 

 and E. trigonocarpa. In all the plants, which the author examined, 

 of E. emarginata and androscemifoiia, the whole of the capitula 

 were male. This is not unfrequently the case also with E. Esula, E. 

 Cyparissias, and E. sulicifolia, which, he observes, are rarely found 

 to perfect seeds, to make up for the deficiency of which nature ap- 

 pears to have supplied them with creeping roots. In the male capitula, 

 there is often not the least vestige of the pistillum ; but in those 

 that are female, which are of much less frequent occurrence, the ru- 

 diments of the stamina are always present. 



The flowers of many species of Saxifraga, from the same cause, 

 are likewise often polygamous, and sometimes even dioecious. These 

 abortions are most frequent in the normal group of the genus. 



May \.—A letter was read, addressed to the President by Henry 

 Saville Foljambe, Esq., F.L.S , stating that a specimen of the Falco 

 rvjipes of Bechstein, was shot near Doncaster in April 1830. It is 

 a curious fact that three other examples of the same bird were killed 

 in Norfolk in the same year; until when the species had not been 

 recorded as British. 



A paper was also read, entitled " Some Remarks on the Plant 

 which yields the Cascarilla Bark," by Mr. David Don, Libr. L.S. 



There is reason to believe that many species of Croton afford a 

 bark partaking more or less of the properties of Cascarilla, but 

 among these the Croton Cascarilla of Linnaeus cannot be reckoned; 

 for although this species has usurped the name, it appears that it 

 possesses none of the sensible properties of Cascarilla bark. Wood- 

 ville and most of the more modern writers on Medical Botany 

 have adopted the opinion of the late Dr. Wright, that the bark in 

 question is derived from the Croton Eluteria, the Cliiiia Eluteria of 

 Linnaeus ; hut Mr. Don inclines to the opinion of Boulduc, Spiel- 

 mann, and others, in regarding it as a production of the Spanish 



Main ; 



