Miscellaneous. 347 



are transferable. M. von Linstow thinks that this opinion is correct 

 if we understand thereby that a state of encystation is always neces- 

 sary before a Distomum can be developed freely in the intestine. If 

 a free Cercaria reaches its definitive host, it may continue to live there, 

 but it becomes encysted. — Archiv fur Naturg. 1873, p. 1 ; Bihl. 

 Univ. August 15, 1873, Bull. Sci. p. 328. 



Manufactured Ghissrope. By Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S. «fcc. 



There have lately been sold at a natural-history sale two or three 

 specimens of the glassrope {Hyalonema) from Japan of an extra- 

 ordinary thickness, made up of a very large number of siliceous 

 fibrous spicules, which at the free end diverge in the most extra- 

 ordinary manner into a bunch six or seven inches wide. The size, 

 and especially the fibres being separated from each other and twisted 

 in diff'erent directions, so that the spiral turns did not match each 

 other, excited my suspicions, which were confirmed by the mass of 

 black pitchy matter with which their base was covered. 



The larger specimen was made to appear the most perfect, and 

 was about four inches in circumference about three inches from the 

 base. This part, above the black pitchy substance, is covered with 

 the usual bark for about two or three inches height. When this 

 animal coat or so-called bark was carefully examined, it was found 

 to have no real connexion with the spicules, and to be made up of 

 pieces of bark taken from other specimens and fixed across the bunch 

 of filaments, the grooves between the pieces looking like wrinkles. 

 These specimens are evidently made for sale, probably by the same 

 French taxidermist that made the specimens formerly noticed. 



I am sorry to say they found purchasers at prices which the 

 separate glassy filaments of which they are composed would not have 

 fetched. The larger specimens have a usual-sized specimen, partly 

 denuded of its bark, attached by a black pitchy substance to its base. 



Note on certain Species of Phasmidae hitherto referred to the Genus 

 Bacillus. By James Wood-Mason, of Queen's College, Oxford. 

 The discovery which I have to announce, viz. that the true males 

 of BaciUns insignis and its allies are to be soxight in insects of the 

 type of Lonchodes stilpnus, Westw., Lonchodes pseudoporus, Westw., 

 Lonchodes BusseUii, Bates, etc., affords another instructive illustra- 

 tion not only of the extreme imperfection of our knowledge of this 

 family of Orthopterous insects, but also of the utter futility of any 

 attempt satisfactorily to distribute the species composing it into 

 genera, until we shall be in possession of the true pairs of many 

 more of the described species. 



In 1869 M. Henri de Saussure* proposed, prematurely as it turns 

 out, to divide the genus Bacillus into three subgenera — one (Bacillus) 

 for the reception of B. Rossii and its allies, another (Bamidus) for 

 B. hmmlis,W estw., B. carinulatiis, Sauss., &c., and a third (Bacidum) 

 for B. cunicularis, Westw., B. ramosus, Sauss., &c. ; and in the first 

 part of my memoir on the Phasmidce f, I provisionally referred to 



♦ M^l. Orth. fasc. ii. pp. Ill & 112. 

 t Journ. A. S. B. 1873, pt. ii. no. 1. 



