588 Annales des Sciences Natia-elles. 



rican grasses by E. Poeppig — Monograph of the genus Paulia — Catalogue of the 

 Acotyledonous plants of Southern Africa, intended to include all that have been 

 discovered since the publication of Ehrenberg's Flora of that country, part 1st, 

 Filices. — Continuation of the list of plants discovered in the expedition of Ro- 

 manzoff, with the addition of those collected by Ehrenberg in Hispaniola Con- 

 tributions towards the history of Botany in the 1 3th century Upon the willows 



in the Hortus Hostianus, and the Dendrotheca Bohemica. 



Annates des Sciences Naturelles. Zoologie, MM. Audouin et 

 Milne-Edwards. Bolnnique, MM. Ad. Brongniart et Guil- 

 lemin. Crochard and Co. Paris, Juillet, Aout, 1836. (Con- 

 tinued from page 489.) 



1. Zoology. 



The July Number is occupied with Milne- Edwards' " Recherches anato- 

 miques, physiologiques et zoologiques sur les Eschares" a paper which embraces 

 a review of every thing which has been written on the family, a detail of the au- 

 thor's original inquiries, which are very interesting and complete, and a descrip- 

 tion, illustrated with excellent figures, of all the species known to this date. We 

 shall have occasion to make ample use of this essay in the " History of British 

 Zoophytes" publishing in this Magazine ; but we desire to mention at present, 

 that Milne-Edwards disputes the accuracy of the view adopted by us, of the in- 

 organic nature of the polype-cells and of the polypidom, contending that these 

 are formed much as bone is in the superior animals, and continue to be in con- 

 nection with, and under the control of, the living parts. The cell, he says, in 

 which the polype retreats as into a shell, is an integral part of the animal, in 

 which it conceals itself just as the hedgehog withdraws after a manner into the 

 spinous skin of its back. The cell is not a calcareous crust which is moulded on 

 the surface of the body of the polype, but a portion of its general tegumentary 

 membrane or skin, which by a molecular deposition of earthy matter in the 

 meshes of its tissue, hardens as the cartilages of the superior animals harden 

 themselves, without ceasing to be the seat of a nutritive movement. The facts 

 on which Milne-Edwards grounds this conclusion, we are willing to admit ap- 

 pear conclusive ; and we have only to guard against its general applicability, for 

 the explanation refers only to the polypidoms of which we have designated " as- 

 cidian polypes." 



The analysis of the proceedings of the " Academie des Sciences" embraces a 

 continuation of the interminable notices of the Orang-Outang, and its verisimi- 

 litudes to man, with which Geoffroy Saint- Hii.aire, from sitting to sitting, 

 entertains the academy ; Leon Dufour's account of the parasite of the Andrce- 

 na aterrima already mentioned by us, p. 295 ; a letter from Alex. Brongniart 

 on Ehrenberg's discovery of fossil Entomostraca and other infusory animalcules ; 

 a notice of a shower of Frogs which fell in August 1804, near Toulouse ; Doune 

 on the action of pus upon blood newly drawn from the veins ; and a long and 

 curious note upon the Guacharo (Steatornis Curipensis, Humb.) of the Cavern 

 of Caripe. 



The contents of the number for August are, " Memoire sur V emigration du 

 Puceron du Pccher (Aphis persiea\) et sur les rharacteres et Fanatomie de cette 



