Botany and Zoology.  - 131 
species of fish bears the name of Terma termi in the country ; and 
moreover the effects produced by the Gymnoti are, according to Pohl, 
Brazil from those of the south ; the Rio dos Pilées belongs to the 
former, as does the Rio da Madeira. ‘The Lepidosiren paradowa of M. 
Natterer has actually the form of a worm, like the minhocéo. Both 
have fins ; but it is not astonishing that they have not always been rec- 
ognized in the minhocao, if, as in the Lepidosiren, they are in the ani- 
mal of the Rio dos Pilées reduced to simple rudiments. The teeth of 
the Lepidosiren,” says Bischoff, * are well-fitted for seizing and tearing 
its prey ; and to judge of them from their structure and from th 
cles of their jaw, they must move with considerable force.” These 
characters agree extremely well with those which we must of necessity 
admit in the minhocao, since it seizes very powerfully upon large ani- 
mals and drags them away to devour them. It is therefore pr 
that the minhocdo is an enormous species of Lepidosiren ; and we 
might, if this conjecture were changed into certainty, join this name 
to that of the minhocao to designate the animal of the lake Feia and of 
the Rio dos Pilées. Zoologists who travel over these distant countries 
will do well to sojourn on the borders of the lake Feia, of the lake 
Padre Aranda, or of the Rio dos Pildes, in order to ascertain the per- 
fect truth—to learn precisely what the minhocdo is; or whether, not- 
withstanding the testimony of so many persons, even of the most en- 
lightened men, its existence should be, which is not very likely, reject- 
ed as fabulous. ; f ay aie 
4. Ear of the Limneus stagnalis, (Weigm. Archiv. ; L’Institut, 
March 10, 1847.) —According to observations by M. Frey, the auricular 
vesicle is visible in the Limnzus stagnalis soon after the rotary move- 
ments of the embryo have ceased and the animal has commenced to 
become coiled in the interior of its shell. There may then be easily 
observed in the interior part of the body, the rudiments of tentacles, 
the eyes with their pigment, and the tongue with its characteristic epi- 
thelium ; and on each side of the base of the tongue, the auditive ve- 
Sicles may be distinguished. These vesicles are spherical, with a sim- 
ple contour, and have a diameter of gy to =}; of a line (French). They 
appear at first to contain in the interior only a transparent liquid, and 
are then, like the eyes, without any connection wiih the central parts 
of the nervous system. soon one or two small corpuscles are 
formed in the liquid interior, whose form, size, and oscillatory move- 
