214 Miscellaneous, 



Columba Turtur, Charadrius Hiaticula, Totanus hypoleucos, Glareola 

 pratincola, shot at Xanthus, the "Partridge Snipe" of the Turks. 

 — Larus argentatus, Tadorna rutila. These specimens are ])laced 

 in the Museum of the Natural History Society at Nottingham. 



ON THE GENERA MGJLOPS AND TRITICUM, 



From the extreme resemblance of the fruit of JEgilops with the 

 grains of cultivated wheat, some botanists have supposed that the 

 latter was merely an JEgilops modified by cultivation. M. Esprit 

 Fabre having found some plants of ^gilops triticoides last year, in 

 the environs of Agde, sowed the fruits of them in his garden, and 

 obtained a plant in which the characters of jEgilops almost entirely 

 disappeared to give place to those of Triticum. It is not yet quite 

 a Triticum, nor is it an JEgilops. Next year M. Fabre intends to 

 sow the grains he gathered this year, and to continue the observa- 

 tions he has begun. — Comptes Rendus, August 1839. No. 7. 



ON THE ANIMAL NATURE OF THE OSCILLATOR! A, 



In a late Number of the * Annals,* p. 70, we drew the attention 

 of our readers to the problematical nature of the Oscillatoria ; since 

 then we have received the April number of the * Annales des Sciences 

 Naturelles,* in which Dr. Unger, in communicating the description 

 of a new Spirillum, makes the following observation on the nature 

 of these curious and interesting forms. I did not propose, says the 

 learned Doctor, in making this communication to enter into a compa- 

 rative examination of the Oscillatoria, but to combat a system, ac- 

 cording to which the forms at present known ought to be necessarily 

 referred to some vegetable genus, composed of elements certainly 

 very heterogeneous. When Agardh, speaking of some Oscillatoria'^ 

 which move with the greatest ease, states that they have an arti- 

 culated head which they move after the manner of a beak, he cer- 

 tainly by this points to an animal nature. The characters assigned 

 by Agardh to the Oscillatoria animalis of Karlsbad are far more 

 striking : according to his expressions, it does not oscillate ; it has 

 not the pendulum-like movement ; but it crawls like a worm, and 

 turns itself in every direction. It is also able to move itself freely 

 in the water, differing thus from the others, which are only able to 

 do this when they rest on the common substratum. It moves the 

 head, which is linguiform, us the mollusca move their tentacula ; in a 

 word, animal movement cannot be denied them. Moreover, if we 



♦ Ueber die gegen meinc Aiisichteii hi der Phy biologic der Algcii ge- 

 machten Einwiirfe. — Nova Acta Nat. Curios, vol. xiv. part II. p. 756. 



