70 Miscellaneous. 



from the hinder quarters, and I observed a continuous and ahnost 

 imperceptibly slow progression of what remained round one of the 

 corners of the mouth and down the throat. In this way the cuticle 

 became removed in proportion as it was detached. The whole of the 

 left side was cleared first, with the exception of a small tattered frag- 

 ment that adhered round the fingers, and which I did not observe to 

 be removed by the mouth. The right arm was then more successfully 

 liberated, the cuticle slowly disappearing round the right angle of 

 the mouth, much as we might fancy a long strip of ribbon maccaroni 

 would descend if carefully swallowed without a rupture. I did not 

 notice any direct pushing of the cuticle by the hands into the 

 mouth ; nor yet any pellet formed of it, to be bolted at a single gulp. 

 Whether there has been any mistake in the description of the process 

 adopted by our English toads I will not venture to assert, but certainly 

 my own pet swallowed his Jersey jacket in a very gradual and de- 

 liberate manner. — J. S. Henslow, Hitcham, March 11. — Gardeners' 

 Chronicle, June 15, 1850. 



On the Habitat ©/"Cyprsea umbilicata, Sowerby. By Ronald 

 GuNN, Esq. In a letter to J. E. Gray, Esq. 



Mr. Gunn, the enthusiastic and intelligent naturalist in Launces- 

 ton. Van Diemen's Land, from whom we have received so many pro- 

 ductions of that island, has most kindly sent to the British Museum 

 a fine specimen of the above shell, which was described by Mr. Sow- 

 erby in the Appendix to the Tanker ville Catalogue. Mr. Gunn in 

 his letter observes : — 



*' Cowries, found upon the east shore of Barren Island, one of Hun- 

 ter's islands, N.W. of Van Diemen's Land. Considerable numbers of 

 the dead shell of this species were to be seen lying upon a deep bed 

 of the dead shells of a species of Pectunculus. 



" I will send you a Cowry which is new : it is most closely allied to 

 Cyprcea eximia of Strzelecki, * Physical Description of New South 

 Wales and Van Diemen's Land;' at all events it is not figured in 

 Reeve's monograph of the genus. It is larger than C. eximia, I am 

 not perfectly clear that it will prove to be the same ; if so, it will 

 corroborate an opinion which I have some time held, that the C. exi- 

 mia was not a fossil, but carried inland by the aborigines, and fell 

 from near the surface to the position in which it was said to be 

 found." — From the Proceedings of the Zoological Society for Nov. 

 1849. 



GLYCERIA PEDICELLATA. 



It is of importance to notice, that in my paper " On a supposed 

 new species of Glyceria^^ in the 'Annals' for February 1850, 1 erro- 

 neously conjectured the identity of my Gl. pedicellata with Gl. pli- 

 cata a, of Mr. Purchas. Having examined some authentic specimens 

 from that botanist, I find that Gl. pedicellata must be referred to his 

 Gl.fluitans j6 2. 



I shall suppress any further remarks that I might at present feel 

 inclined to make on these plants, in the hopes of shortly arriving at 

 more certain knowledge. — F. Townsend. 



