
NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 159 
UARTERLY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, January (London).— Signor Cocchi 
announces the discovery of a human skull in the lower beds of the Lower 
Post-pliocene strata in ‘Italy. This lower portion consists of lacustrine 
- clays of great thickness, with layers of peat towards its superior margin ; 
it contains bones of the Mammoth (Elephas primigenius), Cervus euryceros, 
ison priscus, and a species (probably new) of the Horse, Equus; it has 
also yielded stone implements and a human cranium, the latter from the 
plain of the Aretino. Whether this deposit be termed Lower Post-plio- 
cene, or anything else, there seems little room for doubt that the skull 
and that Man lived in Italy contemporaneously with those animals.— The 
term Gregarine applied to the Chignon Fungus (see NATURALIST, vol. 1, p. 
379), is most inappropriate, as is admitted both by Drs. Fox and Beigel. 
It is the Pleurococcus Beigelii. The Gregarine are indubitably animals, 
and are internal parasites. i; i 

NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 

BOTANY. 
Viratiry of Serps.—Dr. Gray, in his “How Plants Grow,” says, 
ine, which have been preserved for two or 
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1856, the Arabs were 
dragging forth from the mummy-pits great numbers of mummies. He 
ry often in the 
hands were found grains of wheat, dura, flax, and the nut of 
From the hand of one was thrown out the seed-cup of a 

