548 



NATURE 



[April 26, 1877 



Non-Amphibious Batrachians 



On calling the attention of the Rev. L. Blomefield (formerly 

 Jenyrs) to the interesting article in Nature (vol. xv. p. 491) of 

 SI tree-frog which produced its young without their passing 

 through the tadpole stage, he has been good enough to allow 

 me to quote a MS. note to his work, " Observations on Natural 

 History," p. 203, which may be useful to persons interested in 

 the matter. It refers to a colony of toads which lived in a cellar 

 of Bottisham Hall, Cambs, and without access to water. It 

 runs as follows : — 



" See some remarks by Mr. Lowe in the Annals and Magazine 

 of Natural History (No. 64, April, 1853, p. 341), tending to 

 show that under certain circumstances where the parent animals 

 have no access to water, the reproduction of the toad and frog 

 takes place without the intermediate stage of tadpole. He 

 mentions instances of their depositing spawn in cellars and young 

 toads being afterwards observed. Such was probably the case 

 with the toads in the cellars of Bottisham Hall, though I never 

 observed the spawn myself." " See further remarks by myself 

 on this subject in Annals of Natural History, vol. xi. 2nd series, 

 p. 482. See also Nature, vol. vii. p. 401, on * The 'Adapta- 

 tion of Animals to External Conditions.' " 



The following passage occurs in the Rev. L. Jenyn's "Manual 

 of British Vertebrate Animals," p. 304-5, and bears upon the 

 same phenomenon. 



*' Triton punctatus. Common Eft. 



" This species is subject to considerable variation. It is also 

 found on land, a circumstance which tends in some degree to 

 alter its characters. In such specimens the skin loses its soft- 

 ness becoming opaque, and somewhat corrugated. The mem- 

 branes of the back and tail entirely disappear, causing this last 

 to appear narrower and thicker in proportion to its depth. The 

 toes from being flattened become rounded ; the colours are also 

 everywhere more obscure. In this state it is the Lacerta vulgaris 

 of Sheppard and Turton, and considered as a distinct species by 

 these and other authors. I am, however, perfectly satisfied that 

 it is identical with the aquatic kind, and that all its peculiarities 

 may be traced to the change of circumstances under which it is 

 placed. ... I suspect that the period of time during which 

 this species remains in the larva state is subject to much variation, 

 and that if anything occur to oblige the young to exchange their 

 native element for another before they would attain their perfect 

 form, the gills are cast prematurely to enable the animal to 

 accommodate itself to its new circumstances. The fact of such 

 small specimens as Sheppard has noticed being found on land 

 is indisputable, but I think I have generally observed some 

 traces of there having been gills at no very long period before. " 



George Henslow 



Morphology of " Selaginella " 



In consequence of my not having expressed myself sufficiently 

 fully, Prof Thiselton Dyer somewhat misapprehends my remarks 

 respecting Selaginella and Carex, to which he is good enough to 

 reply in Nature (vol. xv. p. 489) ; and I shall be glad of an 

 opportunity of explaining the nature of the comparison that I 

 drew between the reproductive organs in these two genera. 



I purposely avoided asserting that the spike of the one was 

 the "homologue" of that of the other ; and I thought that my 

 change of expression — " instead of regarding . . . as the homo- 

 logue . . . we compare it "—would sufficiently indicate that I 

 was not raising the question of exact homology at all ; but 

 merely comparing the male and female structures of Selaginella 

 (each as a whole) with those of a unisexual-flowering plant. I 

 regret that I did not state this in explicit terms. 



Notwithstanding what has been written by Sachs and others, it 

 appeared to me that the homology between the reproductive organs 

 of Cryptogams and Phanerogams could not be regarded as yet so 

 completely settled as to be past doubt ; and I therefore wished 

 to exclude, as not material to the line of argument I had in view, 

 such questions as to homology as Prof Thiselton Dyer brings 

 forward. He considers that the ovule, and not the ovary, is the 

 equivalent of the macrosporangium. I did not wish, even by 

 implication, either to assert or to deny this fact, and it does not 

 affect my comparison in the least, for the female structure of 

 Carex comprises of course an ovule. He further considers that 

 this leaves the ovary unaccounted for ; and not only so, but the 

 perigynium and seta also. The essential part of a female 

 flower is the ovule, which may be naked as in Gymnosperms ; 

 and the surroundings, whether consisting of an open carpellary 

 leaf, an ovary, hypogynous scales, corolla, calyx, perigynium, or 



seta are accessories, and any of them may be absent. A com- 

 parison may surely be made between the female flower of a 

 conifer (as a whole) with the much more complex one of a 

 diclinous polypetalous plant, without being vitiated by the fact 

 that parts of the latter are unaccounted for ; and I thought, and 

 with due respect still venture to think, that the macrospor.in- 

 gium of Selaginella with its covering scale, and the female 

 flower of Carex with its covering glume, may properly be 

 regarded as comparable. 



Prof Thiselton Dyer had compared the sporangia of Selaf^i- 

 nella with the male and female elements of a single hermaphro- 

 dite flower, reversing their relative position on the axis ; and 

 my object was to show that, as each sporangium had its own 

 "lateral appendage," they might be equally compared with the 

 male and female elements in the separate unisexual flowers of a 

 diclinous plant, without reversing their position on the axis. It 

 was quite unnecessary for me to discuss which particular parts of 

 the phanerogamic flower were the exact homologues of the 

 macro- or micro-sporangia of the cryptogam ; ancf I did not 

 intend to express any opinion on that subject. 



I thank Prof. Thiselton Dyer for drawing my attention to his 

 paper on C. pulicaris, which, however, I have already had the 

 pleasure of perusing ; for I read everything written by him to 

 which I have access ; and I can assure him that, as a non-pro- 

 fessional myself, I always receive his opinions with the respect 

 that is their due, although in the present instance I cannot adopt 

 his view as to the hermaphroditism of the primordial flower. 

 That subject is, I think, sufficiently important to be discussed by 

 abler pens than mine ; and it was in the hope that it would 

 receive the attention that it deserves, that I ventured to point 

 out the diametrically opposite views that had been ex{)ressed by 

 high authorities. Thomas Comber 



Newton le Willows, April i \ 



The Rocks of Charnwood Forest 



The announcement by Messrs. Bonney and Hill (Nature, 

 vol. XV. p. 470), of their discovery of the intrusive character of 

 the ridge of rock, stretching from Groby on the south-east to 

 Bardon Hill on the north-west, is a surprise to local geologists, 

 they having recognised its intrusive character for the last quarter 

 of a century. 



The rocks constituting the "ridge "are called by different 

 names — sienite, sienitic greenstone, greenstone, &c., according to 

 the greater or less degree of crystallisation of the components, 

 and the abundance, or scarcity, of some of them. Its intrusive 

 character is very obvious. First we have Cambrian Rocks on 

 both sides (east and west) of the "ridge," and at places near 

 Groby these Cambrian rocks are less than half a mile apart. 

 Second, the effect of the intrusion in breaking up the formerly 

 overlying beds, is well seen near Markfield, where there are 

 several low hills called the "Alter Stones ; " these consist'almost 

 entirely of broken up fragments of unaltered Cambrian rocks 

 embedded in a grey, coarse, felspathic base, the fragments 

 forming more than two-thirds of the mass ; similar beds occur 

 beyond Bardon Hill, but the quantity of embedded fragments 

 is not so great, but pieces are found eight to. ten inches square 

 quite unaltered, and showing the " ribboned " structure, red, 

 purple, and green bands, so characteristic of the Cambrian rock 

 of this area. Over other parts of this " igneous ridge " the 

 broken and disturbed beds have long since been removed by 

 denudation, but the debris is found in the "drift," which 

 stretches far and wide for miles over the surrounding country. 

 I think both Mr. Howell of the "Survey," who plotted this 

 district, and Prof. Hull who did the adjoining one, recognised 

 the intrusive character of the igneous rocks on the west side of| 

 Charnwood Forest. Many other facts bearing on this subject! 

 are known, but cannot be described in this short note. Any nao\ 

 facts discovered by Messrs. Bonney and Hill, in illustration 

 this matter, will be gladly received by local geologists. 

 Leicester James Plant 



Patenas of Ceylon 



I Y>o not think Mr. Abbay's suggestion of a possible cause 

 the origin of the Ceylon patenas will be found to hold good 

 the extent he believes it will. On the Dimbula patenas rock 

 any kind is vei"y scarce, even if you go several feet down, ai 

 where it does occur, it is, to the best of my recollection, almost 

 always gneiss. On the patena on my property it is certainly so 

 throughout. In part of theOuvah patena district, mentioned by 



