102 American Journal of Sciences and Arts. 



des Orobanches dc la Flore d'Allemagne — continued from torn- iv. p. 361, and not 



completed. M. Leon Dufour, Notice sur le Sonchus scorzoncrceformis, Lag. 



( Sc pumila, Cav J — S- scorzonerceformis " is a plant peculiar to the Zone of 

 Olives, and delights in warm and dry situations." Found by Dufour on the argilla- 

 ceous hills of Peralta and Tudela in Southern Navarre ; described by Cavanilles 

 from Valentian specimens, and by Lagasca gathered in Murcia. " The most sin- 

 gular feature in the plant, only mentioned by Cavanilles, is presented by the extre- 

 mities of the divisions of the leaves, whatever the age of the plant, terminating 

 in a simulated point white as snow ; this is not occasioned by a peculiar gland 

 or by down, but by a dry and white gangrene ; the juices being withdrawn! from 

 the extremities, and the fibre alone remaining, deprive it as it were of its green 

 pulp." — " This interesting sonchus presents another remarkable physiological 

 fact. It is endowed with such exquisite irritability of somesub-epidermous glands, 

 that the least pressure of the living plant, and sometimes touch only, causes 

 small globules of milky juice to escape from the angles of the divisions of the 

 leaves, and from the edges of the scales of the involucrum." M. Dufour consi- 

 ders this kind or manner of irritability as yet unnoticed C. G. Nees ab Esen- 



beck et C. Montague, Jungermannicarum herbarii Montagneani Species ex- 

 posuerunt. The commencement only of a paper descriptive of the Jungermannia 

 in the herbarium of the last mentioned botanist. 



American Journal of Sciences and Arts. Conducted by Benjamin 

 Silliman, M. D. LL. D. Vol. xxix. No. 2. January 1836. New- 

 haven. London agent, O. Rich. 



I. Zoology. 



Charles Fox, of Durham, p. 291, Notice of some American Birds. A no- 

 tice of some birds observed during a tour in North America . The author men- 

 tions an instance of the young of Molothrus pecoris in the nest of Fringilla so- 

 cialis, where both species were reared and attended to. Wilson and Audubon 

 mention that this had never taken place. 



Judge Samuel Woodruff, p. 304, Notices in Natural History. Two no- 

 tices, one upon a species of Snake supposed to be Col. sipedon, Linn, which 

 the author found to be viviparous. The second, on what he terms the " Moult- 

 ing of Snakes." — It extends from the end of May to the end of September, the 

 largest specimens moulting latest. In casting the skin he observed it done in 

 the following manner by one kept in confinement : " After the animal, by pres- 

 sing the part against the wires, had succeeded in thrusting back the skin three 

 or four inches upon the neck, he left the wires, and throwing his body into a 

 coil round itself, so as to embrace within it the last fold the inverted skin, with a 

 strong muscular pressure, made at the same time a powerful effort, shot his 

 body forward through the coils, which unfolded one after another, and thus drew 

 off the entire skin." 



II. Botany. 



Professor C- Dewey, Cartography. — A continuation of the appendix to the 

 above gentleman's paper on the North American carices, p. 245. One plate. 



