- Prof. G. Gulliver on the Fibrin and Latex of Vegetables. 207 
punctures; orifice orbicular, with a slight contraction on 
each side below, four or five spines round the upper margin ; 
immediately below the centre of the lower margin a mamil- 
lary process prolonged above into a spike, and on one side of 
it an avicularium with pointed mandible directed upwards ; 
ovicell i 
In a valve of Cardium, from Start Bay. 
40. L. armata,n. sp. Pl. XII. fig. 5. 
Cells ovate, somewhat ventricose, granular; orifice orbicular, 
with a loop below, enclosed by a raised border; four very 
long tapering spines, two of ich are placed on the upper 
margin and two on the sides, the latter projecting in front of 
the ovicell ; on one (or sometimes on each) side of the orifice 
a raised process, bearing on the summit a small round avicu- 
larium ; ovicell wide, shallow, flat in front, smooth, or with a_ 
few raised lines. Large mounted avicularia, with elongate 
mandibles, scattered here and there amongst the cells, 
On the under side of a stone, from 30 fathoms, south-west of 
Polperro, forming large brownish or grey patches. 
[To be continued.] 
XXIII.—On the Fibrin and Latex of Vegetables, and on the Coagu- 
lation of Fibrin without Evolution of Ammonia. By Goren 
Guiuiver, F.R.S., Professor of Comparative Anatomy and 
Physiology to the Royal College of Surgeons, 
Tue wide diffusion of fibrin through the animal kingdom is 
well known, But there is little notice, much less description, 
of a spontaneously coagulable fluid in plants. For instance, in 
the last edition of our most comprehensive work on human 
physiology, Dr. Carpenter says there is nothing in the juices of 
the plant analogous to the fibrin of the blood, and, further, 
that “the fact of the entire absence of any substance at all re« 
sembling fibrin in the vegetable juices, and the corresponding 
deficiency of the fibro-gelatinous tissues in their fabric,” may be 
added in confirmation of an ingenious view he had advanced : 
this refers to limiting the value of fibrin, as regards the ordinary 
nutritive processes, to the maintenance of the gelatinous tissues, 
It is scarcely probable that the presence of fibrin in the vege- 
table juices can be unknown; for the fact is that fibrin is by no 
means uncommon in plants—that is to say, a fluid substance 
which will coagulate spontaneously at the temperature of the 
atmosphere, and then present an intimate structure of fibrils, 
15* 
