376 Miscellaneous. 



professed naturalists. Captain Ducane, Mayor of Southampton, had 

 his attention lately directed to marine animals. He found specimens 

 of what, at the time, he considered the common prawn (Palemon 

 serratus) in the ditches of a fen where the tide occasionally entered, 

 and the water was hrackish. These were loaded with egg-s, and when 

 put into fresh salt water, it was soon afterwards filled with small dia- 

 phanous creatures, very different in form from the parent animals. He 

 was not, however, able to keep them more than three days alive — the 

 parent only five or six. Drawings of this animal and the young were 

 shown to Mr Macleay, who discovered at once that it was not -a Pa- 

 lemon, but a species of some allied genus, perhaps Crangon, and on 

 comparing Captain Ducane's drawings with the figure of Mr Thomp- 

 son, copied from Slabber's work, found them very similar, and almost 

 identical ; and this fact he considered went very far to prove the con- 

 firmation of that gentleman's observations. 



Dr Richardson hinted at the possibility of these young animals 

 being parasitical in the eggs of the Crangon, but Mr Macleay consi- 

 dered it impossible that every eg^ should contain a parasite. Mr Hope 

 remarked that Zoe had been found parasite on Beroe, while Mr Mac- 

 leay stated, that he had found the Decapod Crustacea parasitical in the 

 Gulf stream, but could not perceive the smallest ground for believing 

 that the young alluded to in Captain Ducane's letter could be ani- 

 mals of this description. 



Mr Holiday exhibited engravings (from the Suites des Buffon) 

 of Argas persicus and ionodes, in illustration of the subject brought 

 forward yesterday by Dr Traill. Mr Macleay remarked, that the 

 term bite, which was employed yesterday when describing the wound 

 inflicted by this animal was improper, being produced by the insertion 

 into the skin of a serrated rostrum, which produced great inflamma- 

 tion. He also remarked that the history of this genus was remark- 

 ably curious. In Cuba oxen were sometimes covered with them, and 

 when they had sucked their fill, the serrated rostrum breaks off, and the 

 creature makes its way to the nearest stone, under which it may then 

 be found. When brought home, thousands of eggs would be found 

 issuing from the broken rostrum. He, however, did not pretend to 

 say that the eggs were not impregnated by the usual canal, but that 

 he had never seen them produced in any other way than from the 

 opening formed by the abrasure of these parts, which, when the ani- 

 mal became so full, seemed to serve the common purpose of an in- 

 testinal and generative opening. These eggs produced a hexapod 

 larva, the young form of the great division Arachnoidese, of which the 

 Acari are the types. 



