288 Scientific Intelligence, 



4. Phycologia Aiistralica^ or Figures and Descriptions of Australian 

 Seaweeds^ is tlie title of an illustrated work on tlie marine botany of 

 Australia, announced by Dr. Harvey, Professor of Botany in tlie Uni- 

 versity of Dublin, on the plan of bis Phycologia Britannica^ so well 

 known and so admirable. It is to be published by Mr. Eeeve (if the 

 number of subscribers' names warrant the undertaking), in fifty monthly 

 parts, each with six colored plates and as many pages of letter-press, at 

 three shillings sterling per part; and will contain the choicest fruits of the 

 author's recent labors and discoveries upon the Australian shores. A. g» 



5. Indigofera Caroliniana^ of Walter, the common Wild Indigo-plant 

 of the Southern United States, as Mr, Niesler informs us, is commonly 

 used by the country people in Georgia in place of /. tincioria, and it 

 yields an indigo winch to all appearance is equal to the commercial article. 

 " Just when it is beginning to bloom, the old wives collect from the woods 

 as much of the plant as they can procure; they steep it in water some 

 twenty-four hours, until it assumes a greenish tinge, when the liquid is 

 drawn off and churned until it assumes its proper blue color : it is then 

 curdled by the addition of a small quantity of ley from wood ashes, and 

 allowed to settle; the sediment is then collected, put into coarse bags 

 and drained dry, and it is then used in the same way as the ordinary 

 commercial article. Those who have used it most insist that the color is 

 better and more permanent than that of the exotic indigo, and that the 

 same quantity of the plant will yield much more than /. tinctoria. They 

 are in the habit of cutting it three or four times in the season from the 

 same root. Sometimes they gather the seed and sow it in convenient 

 places, where it will flourish and yieid a supply for years. It seems likely 

 that this wild indigo might be made a profitable crop in the South ; with 

 this great advantage, that it would be produced on lands now w^aste and 

 useless for any other purpose "■ — //. M. Niesler^ in Hit. a, g. 



6. The Crustacea and Echinodermata of the Pacific shores of North 

 America; by Wm. Stimpson. From the Journal of the Boston Society of 

 Natural History, voL vi, 92 pp. 8vo, with six phites. Cambridge: 1857. 



Prodromus Descriptionis Animalium Evertehraiorum^ <fec. P^rt It 

 by Wm. Stimpson. Proceed, of the Acad. Nat, Sci. Philadelphia, 1857. 



Mr. Stimpson has a great work before him in the description of the 

 species of invertebrates which he collected in the recent North Pacific 

 Expedition. In the first of these pamphlets he takes up the Crustacea and 

 Echinoderms oi the North American shores in that ocean. He elaborates 

 with great care and skill, and appears to make sure work in his descrip- 

 tions of species. With regard to the Crustacea, he states that now nearly 



130 species of this region are known; among these there are many Mai- 

 oids, but five Cancroids (four of the genus Cancer and one of Ozius) and 

 cone of the Portunid^. The Lithodia group contains ten species. Mr. 

 Stimpson adopts the generic name Enpngurus of Brandt instead of Berix- 

 bardus of Dawa, the former having the priority of the latter by a month 

 or two. He adds the Cancer antennarius to those of Cancer before de- 

 scribed ; and the Hippa of the California shores he makes a new species, 

 the //, anaioga. Besides these, his memoir includes many new specif 

 and some new genera. 



The second pamphlet contains brief descriptions of new specie of 

 the Turbeilaria Nemertinea, collected by the author in the course of 

 the same expeditiom 



