188 Miscellaneous. 



centre of the Volvox. The eudochrome of these cells undergoes no 

 division. In other utricles, on the contrary, which acquire the 

 volume and form of the female cells, the green plastic matter divides 

 symmetrically into an infinity of very small parts, or linear corpuscles, 

 aggregated into discoid hundles. These are beset with vibratile 

 cilia, and oscillate in their prison, slowly at first, but afterwards 

 more rapidly, and they soon dissolve into their constituent elements. 

 The free corpuscles are very active, and it is impossible not to re- 

 cognize them as true spermatozoids ; they are linear, and thickened 

 at their posterior extremity ; two long cilia are situated behind their 

 middle ; and their rostrum, which is curved like the neck of a swan, 

 is endowed with sufficient contractility to execute the most varied 

 movements. These spermatozoids, as soon as they can diffuse them- 

 selves in the cavity of the Volvox, soon collect about the female 

 cells, and succeed in penetrating into their interior ; there they fix 

 themselves by their rostrum to the plastic globule in each cell which 

 is to form a spore, and gradually become incorporated with it. 

 Fecundation thus effected, this reproductive globule envelopes itself 

 successively with an integument beset with conical pointed processes, 

 and with an inner smooth membrane ; the chlorophyll which it con- 

 tains then gives place to starch, and a red or orange-coloured oil. 

 This is the mature spore, of which the author has seen forty in one 

 sphere of Volvox. The author has not observed the germination of 

 these spores. 



He adds, that there is no doubt that the Sphcerosira Volvox of 

 Ehrenberg is a monoecious Volvox globator ; that his V. stellatus is 

 the same V. globator filled with spinose or stellate spores ; and that 

 his V. aureus only differs from the common Volvox by having acci- 

 dentally smooth spores. — Comjotes Rendus, 1 Dec. 18r)6, p. 1054. 



List of Phcenogamous Plants collected by Dr. E. K. Kane on the 

 Western Coast of Greenland, from 73°-80° North. Extracted 

 from his ^'^ Arctic Explorations," ii. 445. 



Dr. Kane and his parties having penetrated much further towards 

 the Pole than any of the other Arctic expeditions, and succeeded in 

 arriving at what is perhaps the northern extremity of Greenland, 

 and at an open Polar Sea of unknown extent, the list of the plants 

 brought back by them possesses intei-est — (1) from its raising the 

 total number of N. Greenland plants from forty-nine to seventy-six ; 

 (2) by showing that there is little or no difference in the vegetation 

 throughout the whole extent of the Greenland coast from the 67th 

 to the 8 1 st degree ; (3) by proving that two plants, Hespe?-is Pallasii 

 and Vesicaria arctica, flourish on the most northern land that has 

 been discovered, although they had previously been noticed only in 

 the milder regions of the Polar zone. Mr. E. Durand, the editor of 

 the botanical appendix to Dr. Kane's book, remarks upon this latter 

 fact, that, although limited to the appearance of two species, it "seems 

 to indicate peculiar isothermal influences, depending either on warm 

 currents, greater depth of water, or actual depression of our globe at 

 its poles." 



