156 Miscellaneous. - 
mentioned person last spring in the fens of Cambridgeshire ; these 
were all that were procured. 
The following is a short specific description :— 
Sylvia luscinioides, Savi (Pseudoluscinia Savi, Bonap.). 
General colour above castaneous brown, with the tail very incon- 
spicuously barred with darker ; line over the eyes, breast, sides and 
under tail-coverts paler than the upper parts; throat and middle of 
the abdomen albescent, the former slightly spotted triangularly with 
darker. ‘The first quill very short, and the second longest of all. 
Upper mandible brown, lower and feet yellowish brown. 
Total length, 54; bill, 58; wings, 24; tail, 24; tarsi, 7%. 
Grorae Ropert Gray. 
PHYSOPHORES, 
Mr. Milne Edwards believes that these are not single animals, 
but the aggregation of a great number of individuals growing by 
buds, and living united together like the compound Polypes.—Ed- 
wards, Ann. Sc. Nat. 1840. 
ECHINIDZ. 
Mr. M. Edwards and Dr. Peters have discovered that the Hchinide 
are of separate sexes: the testicles differ little from the ovaries, but 
they contain a white milky fluid, while that of the ovaries is orange. 
— Edwards, Ann. Sc. Nat. 1840, p.196. 
CARINARIA. 
According to Mr. Edwards, the nervous system is much more 
complicated than in any other Gasteropodes; besides the labial gan- 
glions, the cerebral, and the subeesophageal, there are a pair of optic 
ganglions, a pair of ophthalmic, a pair of hepatic and a subanal gan- 
glion. Lastly, they have stomato-gastric nerves analogous to those 
which have been observed in Crustacea, and in many other inyerte- 
brated animals.— Ann. Sc. Nat. 1840, p. 196. 
HISTORY OF MOLLUSCA. 
M. De Blainville has lately published some extracts from M. Dufo’s 
observations on the habits of mollusca; in which he remarks that 
this gentleman has observed that the eggs of Achatina Mauritiana 
are disposed in the form of a column, forming a more or less length- 
ened series; that Helix unidentata and H.Studmanni are ovoviviparous; 
that some species of Calyptrea are provided with a support distinct 
from the rock on which they are placed; that Hipponyx sometimes 
hollows out the surface of the bodies to which it is attached; and 
that the Byssiferous bivalves sometimes detach their byssus thread by 
thread. These remarks with regard to the Calypirea are very inter- 
esting, as showing the affinity of the animal to the Hipponyces, which 
have been proposed to be placed with the bivalves. The observa- 
tions with respect to ovoviviparousness of some Helices and the habits 
of the Hipponyces are not new to English malacologists.—J. E. Gray. 
