380 Miscellaneous. 



most of the fibres, the enormous vessel occupying their centre filled 

 with a solid white substance, forming continuous or interrupted 

 cylinders of variable length. This substance, when detached and 

 put into water, breaks up into granules ; and, singularly enough, the 

 suspended grains were sometimes agitated by a very lively move- 

 ment, although the cane from which they were derived had long 

 been dry. This substance was contained in well-marked porous 

 vessels. 



In proof that the solid substances are deposited in the vessels 

 during the life of the plant, the author cites an example to show 

 that the solid matter, far from penetrating into the vessels after 

 section, has a tendency at that time to escape from them. An old 

 vine-stem, 6 centimetres in diameter, had been cut into pieces from 

 1 to 2 metres in length. In a short time the cut surfaces were 

 covered with an abundant, transparent, gummy layer. Having 

 made new and very smooth sections, the author found on the follow- 

 ing day that filaments of gummy matter 5 or 6 millimetres in length 

 had issued from the large vessels. Hence it appears certain that, 

 even at an advanced age, the trachean vessels may contain, not only 

 gaseous bodies, but also substances which sometimes acquire a great 

 density. — Comptes Rendus, Oct. 2, 1865, p. 544. 



On the Organization of the Cypridinse. 

 By Professor Claus. 



During a residence at Messina, Prof. Claus turned his attention to 

 the little Crustacea which swarm in the waters of the sea. He was 

 particularly struck by a small Ostracode of the genus Cypridina, in 

 which he detected, even with a low power of the microscope, an 

 accessory single eye in addition to the large, paired, compound eye, 

 and a heart beating with regular pulsations. This latter discovery 

 naturally surprised him, as in the other two families of Ostracoda 

 (the Cypridce and the Cytheridce) the heart is entirely deficient. 

 A more attentive examination of these Crustacea soon showed, how- 

 ever, that the Cypridina differ much more from the other Ostracoda 

 than the Cypridce and Cytheridce from each other. 



The fact that an organ so important as the heart may sometimes 

 exist and sometimes be deficient in animals so nearly allied to each 

 other is doubtless surprising, but by no means without precedent. 

 Thus it has been demonstrated that the Copepoda are in the same 

 case. M. Claus himself has shown that if the Cyclopidce, Harpac- 

 tidce, and CorycceidcB are always destitute of a heart, the allied 

 Pontellidce and Calanidce are always furnished with one. Moreover 

 the author is not the only person who has observed the heart in the 

 Cypridince, as M. Fritz Miiller mentions it in a recent work (Fiir 

 Darwin, 1864). 



The sole visual organs hitherto known in the Cypridince were the 

 paired eyes, in which M. Lilljeborg has detected a complication of 

 organization very similar to that of the eyes of the Cladocera, although 

 the latter are fused into a single mass, forming as it were a median 



