Miscellaneous. fl.T 



breast and under surface purple ; Lack and winjjs ridi chestnut, 

 with vioh't rcHi'Ctions wlicn viewed in eertain lights, and passinj^ 

 into ijoldeu bronze at the nape; rum]) and U])])er tail-eoverts rich 

 purplish blue; tail blaekish green ; legs yelloAvor reddish yellow. 



lotal length Ifi inches; bill \\, wing 7, tail 6|, tarsi 2|. 



I obtainetl this tine bird of Mr. James (Jardncr of ]lolborn, 

 who could not inform me of the precise locality in which it was 

 collected ; but as it was accompanied by Paradisea papuana, 

 Epinuichus maximns^ many specimens ot Stnnioptera Wallacei, 

 and Pitta maxima^ it was ])r(»bably jirocured on some one 

 of the islands of the Eastern Archi})elago or in New (iiiinea. 

 Although the bill is not toothed, this species appears to be 

 allied to I)i<Iuuciih(s. 



miscella:xeous. 



Deep-sea Researches. 

 To the Editors of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 



Gkn'tlkmex, — You will oblige me, and at the same time, I be- 

 lieve, further the interests of scientific truth, by inserting the follow- 

 ing observatious in the ' Annals.' 



In a note which appeared in ' Nature," of Dec. IGth, p. 192, 

 Sfr. Gwyn Jeffreys makes known his views on the " Food of Oceanic 

 Animals '' in these words : — 



" The receipt of an interesting paper by Prof. Dickie, entitled 

 " Notes on range in depth of marine Algae,'' lately pubUshed by the 

 Botanical Society of Edinburgh, induces me to call the attention of 

 physiologists to the fact that plant-life appears to be absent in the 

 ocean, with the exception of a comparatively narrow fringe (kuown 

 as the Httoral and laminarian zones) Avhich girds the coasts, and 

 of the *' Sargasso " tract in the Gulf of Mexico. 



" During the recent exploration, in H.il.S. ' Porcupine,' of part 

 of the North Atlantic, /co it W not detect the slightest trace of an;/ 

 vegetable organism at a greater depth than fifteen fathoms. Animal 

 organisms of all kinds and sizes, living and dead, taere evert/where 

 abundant, from the surface to the bottom ; and it might at first be 

 supposed that such constituted the only food of the oceanic animals 

 which were observed, some of them being zoophagons, others sarco- 

 phagous, none phytophagons. But inasmuch as aU animals are said 

 to exhale carbonic acid gas, and on their death the same gas is 

 given out by their decomposition, whence do oceanic animals get 

 that supply of carbon which terrestrial and httoral or shaUow-water 

 animals derive, directly or indirectly, from plants ? Can any class 

 of marine animals assimilate the carbon contained in the sea, as 

 plants assimilate the carbon contained in the air ? 



" Not being a physiologist, I will not presume to offer an opinion ; 

 but the suggestions or questions which I have ventured to submit 



