430 Miscellaneous. 
met with them in the genital organs of a Lumbricus, accompanied by 
true Gregarine. These two facts evidently demonstrate a relation 
between the Navicellee and the development of the Gregarine. Nu- 
merous observations made by Dr. Stein on the development of the 
Navicellee in the Lumbricus, prove that these are only stages of meta- 
morphosis of the Gregarine. After having observed some trans- 
itions between the genus Zygocystis (a Gregarina where two indivi- 
duals adhere by the anterior portion of their body) and the cysts in 
which the Navicelle are developed, Dr. Stein compares their forma- 
tion to the reproduction by conjugation observed in some Confervee. 
Observations made upon other Gregarine inhabiting the intestinal 
canal of insects appear to confirm this view. It would thence result 
that two individuals unite at first by juxtaposition. In these adult 
pairs each individual assumes an oval shape. The interior septum 
separating the cavity of the body into two portions is re-absorbed ; the 
two individuals then appear like two hemispheres pressed one against 
the other ; they then secrete a gelatinous liquid, which solidifies, en- 
veloping the two. Lastly, the particular membrane of each individual 
is re-absorbed, and their contents unite into a single granular sphere, 
which is gradually converted into Navicelle. These bodies, called 
germinating granules by Dr. Stem, are frequently met with in the 
excrements of different insects, either free from their cysts or still 
contained in their envelopes (for instance in Tenebrio molitor). From 
thence they arrive with the food in the intestinal canal of other indi- 
viduals, where on their development they give rise to Gregarine.— 
Muller's Archiv and Bibl. Univ., August 1849. 
WAY IN WHICH TOADS SHED THEIR SKINS. 
I have a small house under my care for growing cucumbers. 
There is a bed in the middle of it, and the soil is about 3 feet high 
from the ground (7. e. to the top of the hills where the plants are 
in). A person therefore standing in the house can examine an ob- 
ject placed on the hill with ease. Last Saturday, about 7 o'clock a.m., 
I uncovered the house, and went in to see that all was right, when to 
my surprise I saw my pet companion, a fine toad, apparently in the 
agonies of death. It was seated at the end of the ridge or hill of 
soil; its mouth or rather under-jaw opening every few seconds (the 
top jaw did not move), the eyes shut, and the body violently con- 
vulsed each time the jaw opened, and with each convulsion of the 
body the right fore-foot was raised to the head. I placed myself in 
front of it, and perceived that it was drawing something into its 
mouth each time the jaw moved ; at that instant the right eye opened, 
it then inflated the body on the left side and drew in the right, 
placing at the same time the left fore-foot on the head behind the 
eye and drawing it down to the mouth ; it then appeared to hold its 
foot in the mouth for about a second, when it drew it out, and I di- 
stinctly saw the three points of skin that came off its toes outside its 
lips till the next opening of the jaw, when they were drawn into the 
mouth. When it drew its foot over its left eye (which before was 
shut), it broke out as bright as ever. Some folds of the skin adhered 
to the left leg, but by two or three motions of the jaw they were 
