Miscellaneous. 237 



one for my collection ; and that as I can say beforehand I shall 

 find Ccenuri of such a size and of such a degree of development, the 

 question of coincidence is set at rest. It might as well be said, that 

 the plants we gather do not arise from the seeds which have been 

 put into the earth. — Comptes Rendus, July 3, 1854, p. 46. 



THECACERA PENNIGERA. 



To the Editors of the Annals of Natural History. 



Weymouth, August 13, 1854. 

 Gentlemen, — I have the pleasure of announcing the capture by 

 myself of two specimens of Avhat I consider, without the slightest 

 doubt, to be Thecacera pennigera of Montagu: see Brit. Moll. hi. 

 p. 575. The only difference I can at present detect is in the number 

 of appendages surrounding the vent. Montagu makes them five in 

 number, whilst I make them three. I feel considerable doubt in 

 any way questioning the accuracy of such an extraordinarily accurate 

 observer as Montagu. I have placed the specimens in far more 

 able hands than mine for description. The first specimen lived in 

 my dredging vessel, in a bottle of salt water, for six weeks. It is a 

 very lively animal, and fond of swimming foot upwards on the top 

 of the water. This was obtained on the 31st July last. The second 

 specimen I caught yesterday, whilst fishing in ten fathoms water, 

 gravelly bottom, in company with Mr. H. Adams and two other 

 friends; this was dispatched by post. I yesterday obtained, for the 

 first time this season, Antiopa eristata ; they were, however, small. 

 I am, Gentlemen, yours truly, 



William Thompson. 



P.S. — Since writing the above, I have received a communication 

 from Mr. Albany Hancock, to whom I had sent the specimen 

 obtained on the 31st July, and who fully concurs with me as to its 

 being the true Thecacera pennigera. 



ATHYRIUM RH/ETICUM. 



To the Editors of the Annals of Natural History. 



British Museum, 28th August 1854. 

 Gentlemen, — The year before last I gathered at Eridge, near 

 Tunbridge Wells, on a bit of ground from which trees had been 

 recently removed, some plants of Athyrium Filix-foemina with the 

 erect habit, curled pinnules, and apparently linear frond, which are 

 given by Mr. Moore, in the 2nd edition of his ' Handbook of British 

 Ferns,' as the characteristics of A. rhceticum ; I have since noticed 

 in Scotland that plants of this species, growing on walls where they 

 are exposed to the sun, frequently assume a similar habit ; and on 

 recently visiting a part of Tilgate Forest, where I had, two years since, 

 gathered abundance of the normal state of A. Filix-foemina, together 

 with most luxuriant specimens of Polypodium Phegopteris, I found 

 (the trees having been cleared away in the mean time) only the rhce- 



