Miscellaneous. 313 



voluntary muscles of Crustacea and Insecta. In the further re- 

 searches of M. Lebort (Annales Sci. Nat. 1850, t. xiii. p. 161) he 

 observes that there is nothing extraordinary in the discovery of 

 transversely striated muscular fibre in Polyzoa {Escliara) by Milne- 

 Edwards, and in Actinia by Erdl, since " the further we have pur- 

 sued the study of the comparative histology of muscular fibre, the 

 more convinced we have become that transversely striated muscular 

 fibre is to be found in a large number of animals of very inferior 

 organization, without regard to their more or less advanced position 

 in the animal kingdom." 



Striated muscular fibre has lately been shown to exist in the 

 "tail" or appendix oi Appendicidaria by Moss (Trans. Linn. Soc. 

 vol. xxvii. p. 300). It was already known to exist in Salpa 

 (Eschricht, Ov. Salperne), in the articulated Brachiopoda (Hancock, 

 Trans. Roy. Soc. 1857, p. 805), and in Pecten (Lebert, Annales Sci. 

 Nat. 1850, ser. 3. t. xiii. p. 166 ; and Wagner, Lehrb. d. vergleich. 

 Anat. 1847, t. ii. p. 470), as weU as in Eschara (MUne-Edwards, 

 Annales Sei. Nat. ser. 2. t. iv. p. 3). I believe, however, that this 

 is the first instance in which it has been shown to exist in the class 

 Gasteropoda ; and this, as well as the rarity of such cases among the 

 lower invertebrates, is a sufficient apology for bringing forward such 

 an isolated fact. Other duties have not yet permitted me to deter- 

 mine whether this phenomenon is constant throughout the genus, or 

 whether it does or does not occur among allied genera. — SilUnian's 

 American Journal, Feb. 1871. 



On Bud-formation in Gymnocladus atid other Plants. 

 By TnoMAS Meehan. 



The author said that last year he had called the attention of 

 the Academy to the fact that Gymnocladus and some other plants 

 had a series of buds, not in the usual order of phyllotaccis, accor- 

 dant with the leaves, as we have believed axillary buds ought 

 to be, but in a direct line one above another, and that in these 

 cases the upper bud, the one the furthest removed from the axil, was 

 the strongest bud. He had overlooked the fact, long known to 

 botanists, until pointed out by Dr. Engelmann, that Lonicera had this 

 longitudinal string of buds ; but in this case the largest bud was the 

 one nearest the axil. He had since noted that these buds all fol- 

 lowed the same law in this, that it was the largo buds which had a 

 flower-producing character, while the small ones were those which 

 continued the axial growth. 



By the help of this last observation, he was now able to explain 

 some facts in Solanaceous plants which he believed had not hitherto 

 been understood. It was well known that many of these had a 

 habit of producing their flower-scapes at varying positions between 

 the nodes, and not at the nodes, as is usual with most flowering 

 plants. He exhibited specimens of the common cherry tomato, in 

 which a few of the flower-clusters sprang apparently opposite to a 

 node, but the majority were at least one-fourth of the way down to 

 the node below, — also other species of the genus, in which the flower- 



Ann& Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 4. Fo^. vii. 22 



