32 Mr. C. C. Babington on the British Rubi. 



with a horny, undulated, concentric operculum, a siphon, and 

 four large fimbriated tentacula. The foot, which is large, is con- 

 vertible into a concave boat-like disc above the shell. The in- 

 closed sketch will give you some idea of its appearance, but un- 

 fortunately the float (which is three or four times larger than the 

 shell, and is composed of twenty to thirty vesicles) had become 

 detached in the specimens which I reserved for examination, so 

 that I could not figure it in connexion with the animal. Is this 

 not a new genus ? 



I have been much pleased with our two weeks' stay at Moreton 

 Bay. Everywhere one sees signs of its proximity to intertropical 

 Australia, although only in 27° 15' S. latitude. Pandanus pedun- 

 culatus makes its first appearance here, and among the birds, 

 Attagen Ariel and a few others appear to have here their southern 

 limits. I one day landed, at low water, upon a large, flat sur- 

 rounding mud-island, and was surprised to find it a reef of dead 

 coral, chiefly madrepores. Under the loose blocks I picked up 

 the same Crustacea which occur on all the reefs to the north- 

 ward. My last two days here shall be devoted to dredging, but 

 the tides are so strong that I do not anticipate much success. We 

 sail on the 4th for Port Curtis, and this letter goes in a box of 

 specimens which I intend shall be forwarded from Brisbane to 

 Sydney thence to you. Although T have a good many large jars 

 filled with specimens in spirits, ready for transmission, I shall 

 keep them until my return to Sydney, when there will be enough 

 of them to fill a large box. In hopes of being able in April next 

 to communicate satisfactory results of our first cruise, 



Believe me to remain, yours very truly, 



John MacGillivbay. 

 Prof. E. Forbes, fyc. §c. 



V. — A Supplement to " A Synopsis of the British Rubi. 33 No. II. 

 By Charles C. Babington, M.A., F.L.S., F.G.S. &c* 



Some apology may be necessary for the publication of a second 

 Supplement to my l Synopsis of Rubi/ in which several new 

 forms are proposed as varieties of recognized species, and one 

 supposed new species is described. It probably will be said of 

 these, as it has been of former descriptions of Rubi, that they 

 are only portraits of individuals, not accounts of species or even 

 varieties. In answer to this it may be stated, that several of 

 the plants to which those remarks referred, although originally 

 noticed in one spot (not as single plants, but a crowd of them), 

 have since been found in other and distant parts of the kingdom. 



* Read before the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, 11th May, 1848. 



