Miscella neous. 133 



the Botanical Section," is issued with this part. It contains the 

 Thalamiflorals. Other jjortions Avill follow year by year. The next 

 will give the Calyciflorals ; the third, the Coralliflorals ; the fourth, 

 Apetalous Plants ; and the fifth and last, the Endogens, Gymno- 

 sperms, and Vascular Cryptogams. 



Proceedinr/s and Transactions of the Nova-Scotlan Institute of 

 Natural Science of Halifaj.\ Nova Scotia. Vol. v. part iii. for 

 1880-81. 8vo. Pp. 223-315. Halifiix, N.S., 1881. 



Continuations of geological research in Nova Scotia, by the Rev. Dr. 

 D. Honeyman, Professor of Geology in Dalhousie College, and detailed 

 descriptions of lievrite and of the trap-minerals of Nova Scotia, by 

 Edwin Gilpin, Government Inspector of Mines, and some Geolo- 

 gical Notes by A. Cameron and Alfred Hare, constitute a goodly 

 portion of this part. In Botany, Dr. Somcrs treats of the Fungi and 

 Mosses of the country ; and Mr. A. W. Mackay enumerates the 

 Lichens. The birds of i)rey have an interesting memoir by Dr. J. B. 

 Gilpin, an acute observer. He states that the llev. Mr. "Wainwright, 

 a missionary in Labrador, with good eye and hand, shot an eagle 

 rising eight feet from the ground with a fisherman's child in its 

 claws, and dropped it so cleverly as not to hin-t its living prey. 

 Dr. Gilpin also gives a lively account of the dwellings of the Musk- 

 rat and Beaver of Nova Scotia. The ice-storm of January 1881 is 

 noted by H. S. Poole, F.G.S., and Mr. II. Morrow, among the mis- 

 cellaneous materials of this useful and interesting number of the 

 Nova-Scotian Institute's Proceedings. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



On the Origin of the Spermatozoids in the Hydroids. 

 By M. A. DE Vaeenne. 



In a preceding note I had the honour of presenting to the Aca- 

 demy a summary of my researches upon the origin of the ovum in 

 the Hydroids * ; and I now wish to communicate the results to 

 which my observations on the origin of the male sexual products in 

 the same group have led me. 



In the species that I have observed the mother cells of the sper- 

 matozoids appear not in the gonophores, medusoid buds, or Medusce, 

 as has hitherto been supposed, but in the tissues of the colonj^ 

 itself, in what Allman calls the cceiwsarc. Weismann has lately 

 described the same phenomenon in the genus Plumiduria ; but he 

 thinks that it occurs with the spermatic cells only in this genus. I 

 regret that 1 cannot adopt his opinion. 



• See ' Annals,' October 1881, vol. viii. p. 321. 



