428 Miscellaneous. 
The liquid is probably exclusively an agent in digestion ; it is alkaline, 
and renders reddened litmus-paper slightly blue. 
The odorific apparatus, which has long been well known in the 
adult Pentatomites, is a sac situated at the base of the abdomen, and 
opening in the metathorax by two ostiola, at the level of the last 
pair of legs. In the larvee and nymphe this organ does not exist, 
and yet, like the perfect insects, they diffuse their peculiar odour. 
In the young individuals, from phere hatching to the period of their 
last transformation, there are, in the upper part of the abdomen, below 
the skin, two glands presenting the same characters as the inferior 
gland of the adults. The presence of these organs is indicated upon 
the arches of the dorsal region by two shields; and each of these 
shields presents two ostiola, through which the liquid is ejaculated. 
—Comptes Rendus, September 3, 1866, pp. 433-436. 
Fossil Spider from the Coal-formation. By Dr. F. Ramer. 
Dr. Roemer has ‘described and figured, in the ‘Jahrb. Min. of 
Leonhard & Geinitz,’ 1866, p. 136, a very perfect specimen of a 
Spider from the Coal-formation of Upper Silesia. It is called the 
Protolycosa anthracophila, a name that implies a near relation in 
general habit to the modern Lycosa. The body is about an inch 
long. Appended to this paper is a notice of a specimen of Arthro- 
pleura armata, Jordan, from the Carboniferous beds of Zwickau, by 
Dr. Geinitz. The specimen is sufficient to show that the animal was 
a Crustacean ; it is evidently part of the carapace, and probably of 
a Decapod.—Silliman’s American Journal, July 1866. 
On the Course followed by a Fungous Mycelium in the living trunk 
of Acacia dealbata. By G. GAsPaRRINI. 
The author examined the trunk of a fine plant of Acacia dealbata 
which, when in full flower in the Botanic Garden at Naples, was broken 
at the level of the soil by a slight gust of wind. The heart of the 
wood, from the collar for 2} decimetres upwards, was found to be 
rotten and blackish, whilst the alburnum and bark were in good con- 
dition. A microscopic examination showed in the altered part a 
brownish, ramose, articulated mycelium. This mycelium was traced 
up into the branches as far as about 5 metres above the soil. It 
did not attack the medullary rays, or the pith, or the spiral fibres 
surrounding it, or the fibrous cells, but only the dotted ducts. 
M. Gasparrini inquires how this mycelium could have introduced 
itself into the trunk of the Acacia. He refers to the observations 
made by him upon the radicles of various Liliaceze, several of which, 
having lost their spongioles, were open to foreign bodies of extreme 
tenuit 
Ha chinks that the extremely minute filaments of the mycelia : 
occurring in the soil surrounding the Acacia might penetrate by the 
opening of the fibrous filament of the centre of these radicles into 
the interior of the bush, and thus ascend even to the summit of the 
trunk.—Bidl, Univ. 1866, Bull. Sci. p. 168. 
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