488 Annates des Sciences NatureUes. 



a new'nest, were afterwards hatched. The anecdote is exactly similar to one 

 recorded of the Water-hen, by Mr Selby, in the proceedings of the Berwickshire 

 Naturalists' Club. There is also a long extract from a Memoir of Geoffroy 

 Saint- Hilaire on the Orang- Outang, written in a spirit which we greatly dis- 

 like, and with views strongly coloured by his favourite hypothesis (if he will 

 allow us to call it so) of the unity of organization throughout the animal king- 

 dom. This theory so fully possesses him, that it is almost impossible not to 

 look on his observations and facts with a certain degree of suspicion ; and in the 

 conclusion to which he has been led, in the present instance, we can by no means 

 concur. The Orang- Outang is with G. Saint-Hilaire neither man nor monkey, — 

 a mixture of both, — and man must be classified in future with the Quadrumana. 



Guerin has observed under the abdominal segments of the Machilis poly - 



poda some little membrauous sacs, which he is of opinion are organs of respira- 

 tion analogous to those which are found under the abdomen of many Crustacea, 

 and which are placed at the base of the false abdominal feet. This view of the 

 use of the sacs in the Machilis appears to be strengthened by the fact, that La- 

 treille could discover no stigmata in his dissections of that insect, which this pe- 

 culiarity of structure may perhaps prove to be the type of an osculant group, 

 connecting the classes Insecta and Crustacea — The Number contains, lastly, a 

 short notice of Cuvier's Lecons d'Anatomie Comparee, of which new edition 

 three volumes are published ; and of Frederic Cuvier's Histoire Naturelle des 

 CetacSs, already reviewed in this Magazine. 



II Botany. 



Memoire sus les Closteries, par M. Ch. Morren. — An essay of much interest 

 and sterling value, but we feel that any analysis, however minute, would give a 

 very indistinct and scarcely intelligible view of it, unless we had the aid of the 

 numerous figures with which it is illustrated. The learned professor embraces 

 in his essay a history of all that has been done towards a kowledge of the tribe, 

 which has been placed among infusorial animalcules by some, by others among 

 the algse, while others have maintained its mixed nature — the species being ani- 

 mals in their origin and vegetables in their mature and old age. Morren enter- 

 tains no doubt that all the true Closteria are vegetables, allied to Zygnema, but 

 he says that infusory animalcules have been mixed with them ; and of the real 

 Closteria the species have been erroneously multiplied, by Ehrenberg in particu- 

 lar, from inattention to the varied forms and aspects they assume in the course 

 of their developement. The phenomena presented during this course are mi- 

 nutely traced and delineated in highly magnified figures ; the bearing which 

 these appearances, and the structure of the productions, have on various intri- 

 cate questions in vegetable physiology is indicated with learning and ingenuity ; 

 and the errors of his predecessors corrected. One of these relates to the red- 

 dish points observable on the extremities of the frustula regarded by Ehrenberg 

 as eyes, but which are, we may say, proved by Morren to be vesicular granules, 



probably connected with the propagation of the species Montagne sur les 



plantes cryptogames recemment decouvertes en France. Animadversiones bola- 



niccE nonnullce, novorumque generum et speciorum diagnoses, auct. F. E. L. Fischer 



et C; A. Meyer. Extraits du Botanical Magazine pour Vannee 1835. 



Dupont sur les caracteres generiques du Gypsophila saxifraga. 



Juin. Morren continues his admirable " Memoire sur les Closteries." In one 



