430 NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 
the Arthropoda, commencing with the Crustacea for the third vol- 
ume, of which only the general matter and the Cirripedia and — 
Copepoda are as yet published, and three or four parts of a sixth 
volume for birds have been issued by Selenka, treating the ana- — 
tomical and other matters in great detail. Another general work — 
of merit, although on a smaller scale, has been proceeding as 
slowly. Of Carus and Gerstaecker’s ‘‘ Handbuch der Zoologie,” 
the second yolume, containing the Arthropoda, Malacozoa, and 4 
lower animals, had been already published in 1861, and to this E 
was added in 1868 the first half of the Vertebrata for the first — 
volume, with a promise that the remainder should appear in the — 
autumn, but which promise has not yet been fulfilled. Among the — 
other recently published systematic zoological handbooks of which 
I have memoranda as published in various Continental states, the — 
most important are said to be Harting’s, published at Kiel, in the 
Netherlands, of which up to 1870 only three volumes had ap- 
peared, containing the Crustacea, Vermes, Malacozoa, and lower 
animals; A, E. Holmgren’s “Swedish Handbook ;” Zoology, of 
which Mammalia were published in 1865, and Birds in 1868 © 
1871; and Claus’s “ Grundzüge,” and Troschel’s “ Handbook 
(7th edition) for University Teaching in Germany.— BENTHAM, — 
Annual Address to Society, published in Nature. 
SPONTANEOUS DOUBLE FLOWER or NYMPHÆA TUBEROSA. — Dr. 
E. M. Hale of Chicago sends a flower of the Western White Wa- 
ter-Lily, having apparently only the ordinary number of petals, 
- but no stamens and pistil whatever. If cared for it is likely that 
the root would soon send up flowers with an increased number ot 
petals, like a full double rose. Unfortunately this species lacks 
the perfume of N. odorata. 
ZOOLOGY. 
Ortaix or Species. — Professor Hyatt alluded at a late meet- 
ing of the Boston Society of Natural History, to the color of the 
common Unios and Anodons as probably protective, and the We™ 
known case of the Melaniæ of the Western rivers, which are hardly 
distinguishable to the unpractised eye, and to the peculiar APA — 
marked’ variations of the siluroid fishes of the same region, which 
