9514 NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 
most efficacious in M and it will be worth while for our gardeners 
o experiment wit Quassia has long been used as an insect-destroyer. 
The stavesacre duce are the seeds of à species of larkspur, or Delphi- 
nium, and used to be kept in the old drug stores. Years ago they were 
much used for an insect that found its home in the human head, but as 
that has fortunately gone out of fashion, it may be that the seeds are less 
obtainable than formerly. The stavesacre seeds contain Delphine, which 
is one of the most active poisons known, and we have no doubt that a 
very small share of it would prove fatal to insects. — Scientific Opinion. 
Fauna OF ROUND Istanp. — The remarkable discovery has been made 
By 
feet deep, no animals of that Pita being natives of the Mauritius. 
The flora was also found to be to a great extinct specifically distinct. 
— The Academy 
POSITION OF THE BRACHIOPODA IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. — For some 
time past the writer has had reasons for believing that the Brachiopods, 
with the Polyzoa, had greater affinities with the worms than with the mol- 
lusks. He has studied attentively Terebratulina and Discina as well as 
their early stages, and in all points of their structure interprets articu- 
lated characters, and not t nr characters. Without entering into 
particulars at this time, he would state that in the structure of the shell 
he finds the greatest resemblance to the shell of crustacea, both as nb 
the peculiar baer structure, and the scale-like appearance, and i 
chemical composition. In Lingula, while the carbonate of lime amounts 
to only six per cent., the phosphate of lime amounts to forty-two per et 
in Arie sete which fringe the mantle are remarkably worm-like. 
wo t bristles are enclose d in muscular sheaths, while in e 
viri animals the hairs are simply tubular prolongations of the epi- 
dermallayer. In the Brachiopods these bristles are secreted by follicles 
and are surrounded by muscular fibres, and are freely moved by the animal. 
The structure of iini sete differ but little, if at all, from those im the 
ipa i boten with the cirri is to be compared to similar parts in the 
aeons worms, and the mantle which covers and conceals their arms, 
s to be compared to the cephalic collar, as seen in Sabella, for instance, 
ere we find it split laterally, and a portion reflected. If this were 
sime developed so as to cover the oT fronds of cirri, we should 
recognize quickly the relation between the 
Dr. Gratiolet has compared the aea — of the Brachiopods 
to that of the crustacea, and Burmeister has shown a resemblance between 
e oviducts of Brachiopoda, with their trumpet-shaped openings and, 
similar organs in the worms. 
