Annates des Sciences Nnt/irelles. 291 



the bile is not indispensable or even adjuvant to the act of digestion. This 

 point being granted, we may conceive that it is of little consequence whether 

 the urino -biliary-vessels open behind the stomach, in some parts of the intesti- 

 nal tube, or even immediately at the anus, as we find is the case. In a note ap- 

 pended to this letter, Audouin gives a succinct history of the opinions of previous 

 anatomists relative to the functions of the vessels in question A continua- 

 tion of the translation of Brandt's Remarques sur les nerfs stomato-gastriques 



ou intestinaux, dans les animaux invertebres Description d'empreintes de 



piedes d' Oiseaux dans le Gres rouge du Massachusets, par E. Hitchcock., A 

 translation from Silliman's American Journal of Science, of a peculiarly inte- 

 resting paper to all geologists and zoologists Brandt, Conspectus sectionum, 



generum, sub-generum et specierum novorum, qua in fasciculo primo Prodromi 

 descriptionum animalium a Mertensio in orbis terrarum circumnavigatione obser- 



vatorum reperiuntur Analyse des travaux Anatomiques, Physiologiques et 



Zoologiques presentes a, I'Academie des Sciences pendant le mois de Mars 1836. 

 There is nothing in these notices of sufficient importance to call for an extract 

 of them. At their conclusion there is announced a new edition of the " Regne 

 Animal," preparing for publication, to be illustrated with numerous plates en- 

 graved with every care, and containing a figure of the typical animal of every 

 genus ; as well as plans of the anatomy of the ordinal and classical sections. In 

 what material respects the work is to differ from the " Iconographie du Regne 

 Animal" of M. Guerin does not appear very evident. 



II Botany. 



Anatomie d'une branche de Pinus Strobus, par M. Link. A paper worthy 

 of the distinguished reputation of its author, and which will enable the geologist 

 to determine, with comparative facility, the true nature of those fossil woods, 

 which have been supposed to be the remains of the Coniferae of a former world. 

 Bougueria, novum Plantaginearum genus, auct. J. Decaisne. A genus be- 

 tween Plantago and Littorella, allied to the former in habit, to the latter in the 

 structure of the capsule. The only known species (B. nubicola) was discover- 

 ed by d'Orbigny in Bolivia, growing in fissures of porphyritic rocks on the snow 



mountains, called las lagunas, far overtopping the city Potosi Recherches 



sur V elevation de la temperature du spadice du Colocasia odora ( Caladium odo- 

 rum,) faites dans le jardinbotanique d' Amsterdam, par. G. Vrolik, et W. H. DE 

 Vriese Kock's Description des Orobanches de la Flore d'Allemagne is conclud- 

 ed in this number. Spach, Hypericacearum monographic Fragmenta. Native 



Hypericum elodes is found to have, as its peculiar habit might have led one to 

 anticipate, sufficient differential characters to become the type of a new genus. 



It is the Elodes palustr is of Spach, and no other species is known Notice 



sur V Ambrosia maritima Linne, par. M. Leon Defour Bryologie d'Europe 



publiee en monographies, par MM. Bruch et Schimper. A review of the first 

 part of the French edition. The book is very highly lauded. The part pub- 

 lished contains the Buxbaumiacees and the Phascacees. MM. Bruch and 

 Schimper remark, that in the Muscologia Britannica the description of the Phas- 

 cum alternifolium applies in part to the Archidium phascoides, a species very dif- 

 ferent, although it has been often confounded with the former. It is easy to 

 avoid this error by comparing the sporules of these two mosses : they are very 



