416 Scientific Intelligence. 



3. JSFymphcea flava Leitner. — The plate of Audubon's great work 

 which represents the American swan likewise represents the flower 

 of a yellow Nymphma, or true water-lily, under the above name. 

 The foliacre which accompanies it may be that of a Nuphar^ but 

 )f a Nyn ^ 



: who explored southern ] 



which he published on his plate. The species has properly beer 

 left unnoticed so long as the whole evidence of its existence restec 

 upon Audubon's figure of a flower accompanied as it is witl 

 Nuphar foliage. But of late years we have heard of a yelloTi 

 water lily in Florida. In ]8'74, Dr. Edward Palmer sent us J 

 specimen with foliage and flowers collected in Indian River, anc 

 certified to the yellow color. It has now been detected by Mrs, 

 Treat, on the St. John's River, and living plants communicated t 

 ! may expect to see fresh blossoms. The grc 

 Y different from that of JSF. odorata^ the rhizoma being sho 



svhich we may expect to see fresh blossoms. The growth 

 fferent from that of JSF. odorata, the rhizoma being shorter, 

 and thickly beset with salient blunt tubercles ; and the plant 

 propagates freely by stolons, a. g. 



4. A^o«e on some of the Starfishes of the New England Coast; 

 by A. E. Verriix.— In the Archives de Zoologie Experimentale 

 et Generale, vol. iv, Nos. 2 and 3, 1875, M. Edmond Ferricr has 

 published a very useful and important paper entitled " Eevision 

 de la CoUection de SteUerides da Museum d^Histoire NatureUe de 

 Paris," in which he has redescribed many of the types of Lamarck, 

 J. E. Gray, Mtlller and Troschel, and others, as w'ell as many new 

 species, and has also added many remarks on various genera and 

 species, as well as upon their classification, etc. At the present 

 time I do not propose to discuss this memoir, as a whole, but wish 

 to call attention to some errors into which the author has fallen 

 concerning our common Kew England species, owing chiefly, 

 doubtless, to his not having a suflicient number of well preserved 

 specimens to form any clear ideas of their true specific characters 

 and great variability. 



Every naturalist who has occasion to collect and study any 

 considerable number of living specimens of any of the larger 

 species of Asterias, especially if from diflferent localities or vary- 

 ing stations, must be deeply impressed by their extreme varia- 

 bility, not only in size and color, but in the form and relative 

 length of the rays, character of the dorsal spines, number of 

 pedicellarise, etc. Moreover, if he has had occasion to preserve 

 large numbers of specimens, both in alcohol and by drying, he 

 must have observed the very different forms and appearances that 

 specimens, quite similar when living, will assume, whether owing 

 to the various states of contraction in which they die, or to the 

 mode in which they are afterwards preserved. Thus similar living 

 specimens may be killed and preserved so that one will have 

 slender tapering rays ; another, rays smaller in the middle and 



