140 Miscellaneous. 



are united into a continuous tissue, separate from the walls of the 

 locellus, so that these four masses may easily be extracted from the 

 anthers. The mother cells of the pollen, instead of giving origin to 

 ordinary grains and then becoming absorbed, have become thickened 

 and acquired dotted walls. The layer of fibrous cells, however, has 

 acquired its normal structure, although the author has never seen 

 the anthers open, which would seem to indicate that the pollen- 

 grains themselves have a part to perform in producing dehiscence. 

 Hence two conclusions may be drawn : — 



1 . The abortion of the pollen in the anther does not always, as in 

 the two examples cited by M. Chatin, imply that of the fibrous 

 cells ; the arrest of development may affect the mother cells of the 

 pollen without reaching the walls of the anther. 



2. Of the two simultaneous functions assigned by M. Chatin to 

 the transitory membrane of the anther, which, according to him, is 

 at once " the nurse of the pollen " and " the reservoir from which 

 the cells of the second membrane draw the nourishment necessary 

 for their rapid transformation," the latter alone is confirmed by the 

 above observations. — Comptes Rendus, June 11, 1866, pp. 1289- 

 1294. 



Habits o/Zosterops dorsalis. By the Rev. R, Taylor. 

 (In a Letter to Br. J. E. Gray.) 



My dear Sir, — I have received your letter acknowledging mine 

 with the Zosterops dorsalis ; and I am pleased to find that I am 

 correct in my supposition of its being an arrival from Australia or 

 Tasmania. It appears to increase in New Zealand in a most extra- 

 ordinary way, far more rapidly than any of our indigenous birds, 

 and flies about in large flocks of several hundreds, making an inces- 

 sant chattering, — quite a novelty in that respect. We hailed it as a 

 blessing on its first arrival, as it attacked the American blight-insect 

 and cleared the trees of it ; but we now find it is of doubtful good, 

 for it feeds upon the tender buds of the tree as well ; and as at the 

 approach of summer it retires to the high grounds of the interior, it 

 gives the blight time to become as bad as ever before it returns. 



Several new discoveries have been lately made in ornithology in 

 the middle isle ; but I think some of the birds supposed to be newly 

 discovered are in reality old acquaintances. I expected to find the 

 Nestor superhus to be quite new ; but when I saw a specimen of it 

 at the Otago Exhibition last year, I found it was my old friend 

 figured in my work as the Korako (Nestor meridionalis) ; and lately 

 a far more beautiful specimen of the same bird was procured by 

 Mr. BuUer, which was taken up the Wanganni river, with a brilliant 

 bright-red back as well as breast. It is probably the male Korako. 

 Believe me, my dear Sir, 



Ever most sincerely yours, 



Richard Taylor. 



Wanganni, May 7, 1866. 



