1879. ] Botany. 257 
feet. The lawn was covered with grass some three or four inches 
in height, and every blade forming the circle, was found on close 
inspection to be covered with minute globular bodies of a grayish 
color which, contrasting with the green of the lawn, made the 
circle perceptible at a considerable distance. 
n the morning of its discovery the ring was not completed by 
six or seven feet. The next morning it was finished. Two smaller 
circles were also seen on the same lawn; one however was in- 
complete where it’encroached on a gravel walk. When the circle 
was struck a small smoke like cloud arose. On examining with 
a microscope the blades of grass which formed the ring, they 
were found to be covered with clusters of globular, sessile bodies 
from one-fortieth to one-sixtieth of an inch in diameter, which 
externally resembled minute puff balls. Specimens sent to Prof. 
. G. Farlow of Harvard University, were pronounced by him to 
to be a fungus of the order Myxomycetes (Physarum cinereum).— 
B.C. Fillson, Pittsburgh, Pa. 
Insects as Unconscious SELECTORS oF FLOWERS. — Natural 
selection, the origin of new forms in the animal and vegetable 
kingdoms by the survival of the fittest, and artificial selection by 
man, agree in many points, though differing in others. In gen- 
eral they harmonize in the following respects. From generation 
to generation the number of individuals of every species in pro- 
cess of selection is increased, while the individuals of a given 
generation differ among themselves. Of these individuals, only 
such as surpass their fellows in certain diyections are allowed to 
produce offspring; and these offspring inherit the peculiarities to 
which the prolonged existence of their parents is due. Hence 
we find that both modes of selection result in the accumulation 
last conditions differ greatly in the two kinds of selection. Man 
survival of individual forms are quite similar to those pertaining 
to human selection; for the insects which visit these flowers are 
guided like man by pleasure or profit; and, though they cannot 
weed out plants which do not satisfy them in either of these re- 
1 An abstract of a series of very interesting articles, entitled Die Inse’sten als un- 
-bewusste Blumenziichter, by Dr. Hermann Müller, Kosmos, Band 11, Heft . 
VOL. XIII,—No, Iv. 18 i 
