Miscellaneous. 385 
These movements and these noises have often distracted me from 
my other observations, but without striking my mind, which was 
absorbed by the study of the ejection of water. I ascribed them, 
without accounting for them, either to the agitation of the atmo- 
sphere, to some of my own movements, to the hasty flight of some 
bird concealed in that impenetrable mass of foliage, or to an error of 
the eye produced by the fatigue which always follows too prolonged 
tension of the sight, &c. &c. 
The observations of M. Lecog are therefore to me a plain and 
genuine explanation of a very curious phenomenon which he has the 
merit of being the first to discover and to study with the sagacity 
which is habitual to him ; my only aim is to confirm a new fact, and 
one which may appear extraordinary. 
M. Lecog says in his note that he had never been able to observe 
the fine drops that I have seen so often shoot from the vulvoid 
region situated underneath the apex. He himself gives the cause of 
it when he states that the membrane which covers that region is, in 
the leaves of his plant of Colocasia, imperforate. This imperfora- 
tion (or, rather, this absence of large stomata, orifices of ejection) 
is extremely rare in the leaves of the species of Colocasia that I cul- 
tivate in the open ground; I have only detected it in the propor- 
tion approximately of 1 to 80. I am surprised that all the leaves ob- 
served by that learned naturalist should have presented this anomaly 
of the imperforation of the hymenoid membrane. Does this depend 
on the mode of culture, or on a difference of species? Eleven 
leaves of two plants of Colocasia, cultivated in a hot stove, have 
likewise never presented the least trace of gaping stomata. Be 
this as it may, M. Lecoq would perhaps see a certain relation of 
cause to effect between the spontaneous movements of the leaves and 
their imperforation. My own observations are not favourable to 
this hypothesis. | 
I take advantage of this opportunity to say that this year the 
leaves in vernation have furnished me with still more remarkable 
results than those referred to in my memoir. My observations 
date from the Ist of May to the 15th of November. Now it is in 
the month of June, at the period when vegetation is in all its vigour, 
that the ejection of the water is also most vigorous. I have seen 
some convoluted leaves which, during cool evenings, emitted a con- 
tinuous jet. Careful watchings certainly betrayed a slight inter- 
mittence ; but it was absolutely impossible to count the drops, the 
number of which constantly exceeded 200 per minute.—Comptes 
Rendus, May 13, 1867, pp. 979-980. 
On two new forms of Plants parasitic on Man (Aspergillus flavescens 
and A. nigricans). By Ropert WREDEN. 
From the 25th November, 1864, to the 25th May, 1867, I had 
the opportunity of observing the development of two new forms of 
Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 3. Vol. xx. 26 
