1 882.] Zoology. 323 



species, a large proportion of which are common in our waters. 

 This work, with the catalogue noted above, will go far to render 



easier the systematic study of the diatoms. Professor C. H. 



Peck re-describes, in the January Torrey Bulletin, a curious fungus, 

 Secotium Warnei, which constitutes " a connecting link between 

 the Hymenomycetous Agaricini.andthe Gasteromycetous Tricho- 

 gasters." The close resemblance of some of the stipitate forms 

 to an unexpanded Agaric was, in specimens from Iowa, quite re- 

 markable, and the writer of this note was for a time puzzled to 



determine whether it might not be an Agaric after all. The 



Forestry Bulletins issued from the Census Office, and prepared 

 by Professor Sargent, are of great interest and value to botanists. 

 When the series of bulletins is completed we shall have a most 

 excellent and reliable map of the forest distribution of the United 



States. Wiley & Sons, of New York, have, at the request of 



some of their patrons, reprinted the edition of " Lindley's Horti- 

 culture," which they brought out many years ago, and which had 

 long been out of print. We are glad to see the old book again, 

 and hope that ere long it may be honored with a revision, bring- 

 ing it up to the present status of vegetable physiology. 



zoology. 



The Cell-parasite of the Frog. — The Revue Scientifique, of 

 January 28, 1882, contains an abstract of the discovery by Dr. 

 Gaule, in the frog's red blood corpuscle, of certain bodies which 

 he considers to be derived, under certain circumstances, from the 



protoplasm of those corpuscles. On treating the red corpuscles 

 with a solution of six per cent, of chloride of sodium, there ap- 

 peared, beside the nucleus, mobile corpuscles, elongate and 

 pointed at the extremities. These issued from the cell, which 

 they could drag after them for some time, but after a little while 

 became motionless, and finally died and disappeared. 



These mobile particles are not met with in all frogs, the season, 

 locality, size, and general state of the animal seeming to have 

 considerable influence on their production, which is most abund- 

 ant in the season when the frog takes no food, and depends for 

 sustenance upon the reserves stored up in the season of activity. 

 In the cells of such organs as the spleen, the liver, and the 

 marrow of the bones, these particles develop at the expense of 

 the red blood corpuscles more easily and quickly than in the 

 blood itself, and they are more readily obtainable from the spleen 

 than from any other organ. The addition of the saline solution 

 to the sugar of thai or^an, without the application of heat, caused 

 them to appear. When the violet of gentian was added to the 

 solution only these bodies and the nucleus were colored and this 

 fact led Gaule to suspect that they were derivatives of the nucleus. 



In a last series of observations, Dr. Gaule experimented on 

 tissues taken from the living animal. When these were treated 

 with a solution of corrosive 'sublimate or of nitric acid of three 



