Bibliographical Notices. 223 



ceps, macrotis and Temminckii, G., three beautiful species from the 

 continent and islands of India, remarkable for lengthened egrets, and 

 great development of wing. Batrachostomus auritus, G. (Podargus 

 auritus, Vig. & Horsf.), and, lastly, Nyctibius pectoralis, G., a na- 

 tive of Brazil. 



Archiv fur Naturgeschichte. In Verbindung mit mehreren Gelehrten, 

 herausgegeben von Dr. Ar. Fr. Aug. Wiegmann, Professor an der 

 Friederich Wilhelms-Universitat zu Berlin. Vierter Jahrgang. 

 Drittes Heft. Berlin, 1838. 



[Continued from p. 138.] 



In the last number of the ' Annals ' we merely mentioned the in- 

 teresting memoir of M. Dassen on the motions of the leaves of Plants* 

 intending to give a condensed extract from it when we should have 

 occasion to notice the present part of the ' Archiv.' As this however 

 has been done by Dr. J. Meyen in his excellent Report on the Progress 

 of Physiological Botany during the year 1837, we take the liberty of 

 translating the part referring to this paper, which wiU at the same 

 time contain Dr. Meyen's opinion on the subject. 



M. Dassen, who has published the beautiful memoir on the motion 

 of the leaves of plants, of which Prof. Wiegmann has inserted an extract 

 in his journal, has drawn the attention of botanists to a phsenomenon 

 of leaf-motion hitherto little attended to. The leaves of those plants 

 which move are frequently provided with swellings at their base; there 

 are however other leaves which move without these swellings. The 

 motion of these latter again presents in various plants considerable 

 differences, which are more particularly described in this memoir ; it 

 consists in the inversion of their natural position, which is sometimes 

 performed in the space of a day, but sometimes takes a much longer 

 time. M. Dassen displaced some branches of trees and various other 

 plants from their natural position, and bound them fast to the 

 stem, so that they hung downwards : in the course of a few days 

 they had spread themselves out so much that the upper surface 

 of the leaves was again turned upwards. These experiments were 

 made in June when vegetation was in full force, and the result was 

 the same in all cases. The experiments were then repeated in Oc- 

 tober, when most of the branches remained motionless ; only those 

 of rose trees, of Robinia, and of herbaceous plants endeavoured to 

 regain their previous position. The following question then pre- 



* Onderzoek aangaande de Bladbewegingen, die niet door aanzwellingen 

 ontstaan. 



