40 Miscellaneous. 



combined form by the tissues which prepare venous blood. This 

 fact also leads to certain conclusions as to the manner in which the 

 carbonic acid is combined in the blood and expelled by the corpuscles. 

 When the blood is completely deprived of gas, a portion of its 

 disks is decomposed into a colourless stroma and a coloured fluid. 

 The same phenomenon is observed, although in a less degree, when 

 only the oxygen is removed from the blood, whether by pumping 

 or by suffocation. On the other hand, the attempt to render the 

 blood perfectly free from carbonic acid by the introduction of 

 oxygen was unsuccessful. Even after the long-continued action of 

 air containing oxygen, but free from carbonic acid, about 4 volumes 

 per cent, of carbonic acid always remain, and these can only be got 

 rid of after the removal of the oxygen. Blood so treated showed no 

 changed corpuscles. — Sitzungsber. der kais. Akad. der Wiss. in 

 TFien, 8 January, 1864, p. 3. 



"New Forms o/Mollusks?" 

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



Gentlemen, — May I be permitted, as a constant reader of your 

 excellent Magazine, to record my humble protest against the un- 

 scientific practice (now very much on the increase) of describing, in 

 portentous detail, varieties of well-known species of shells as " New 

 Forms of MoUusks?" I ought not, perhaps, to cavil at Dr. P. P. 

 Carpenter giving the new name of Callista pollicaris to a shell which 

 I had minutely examined and declared to be a variety of Diane prora 

 {Callista prora, Carpenter), because it involves a question of opinion; 

 but I may be allowed to object to his printing, as a statement of my 

 views, a hasty conversational concurrence with an opinion to which, 

 when I came to print my monograph, I refrained from giving pub- 

 licitv. What can be the object of describing as a new species a shell 

 which the describer, in the same sentence, denotes as being probably 

 not a new species ? Dr. P. P. Carpenter brought me some shells, 

 showing that he had named them Callista puella. I told him that 

 they were simply varieties of Dione pannosa (Callista pannosa, Car- 

 penter). But his name oi puella was not then published : it appears 

 in your last Number (p. 312), printed thus : — " Callista (! pannosa) 

 puella." Dr. P. P. Carpenter gives the shell a new name while at 

 the same time denoting his fear that it may be a variety of one 

 named already ; and he goes on to reiuark, with reference to some 

 white specimens of it, " The colourless subtrigonal shells were re- 

 garded by Mr. Reeve as a separate species, but he did not allude to 

 them in his monograph." The reason of my not alluding to them 

 is obvious. Should even the soft parts of the shells under considera- 

 tion ever come into Dr. P. P. Carpenter's hands, I venture to predict 

 that he will find difficulty in showing them to be " New Forms of 

 MoUusks." I am. Gentlemen, 



Your obedient Servant, 



Sutton, Hounslow, Lovell Reeve. 



April 7, 1863. 



