ZOOLOGY. 425 
peculiar climatic conditions, which produce an unusual depression 
of the zones in Portugal, and which also manifest themselves in 
rendering the zone of vegetation much lower in Sumatra than in 
Java, on acccount of the difference in insolation, caused by’ the 
more frequent and heavier clouds in Sumatra, where the axis of 
the mountains is perpendicular to the course of the moist, pre- 
vailing winds, whilst in Java it is parallel to it. In this respect 
Portugal resembles Sumatra, and nowhere are the effects of sim- 
ilar climatic conditions more evident than in the southern portions 
of Chili, and in Terra del Fuego. 
Nore on THE INFLUENCE OF LIGHT on THE DEVELOPMENT OF 
Prants.—Last summer a Mentychia ornata, about a fortnight be- 
fore commencing to bloom, was prostrated by a storm and re- 
mained in that position for a week before I restored it to its 
upright position. The inflorescence of Mentychia is centrifugal, 
the terminal flower opening first and the rest in their order down- 
ward, each flower opening in the evening and closing before sun- 
rise, reopening on a second and usually on a third evening. In 
this instance the regular order was disturbed, the second flower 
not opening till after the fourth, then the fifth to the eighth in 
order, then the twelfth followed by the eleventh, ninth and tenth, 
then the thirteenth followed by the sixteenth, fourteenth and fif- 
teenth. All the retarded flowers were on the lower side of the 
prostrate plant, the retardation being the consequence of the di- 
minished exposure to light during one week.—F rep. BRENDEL. 
ZOOLOGY. 
Tue STRUCTURE or Sroncrs.—An exceedingly valuable work 
on the calcareous sponges has lately been published by Professor 
Haeckel. An increased interest in these organisms has been felt 
from their frequent occurrence at great depths in the sea, the vari- 
ous dredging expeditions in the north Atlantic and the Mediterra- 
nean having revealed many new forms of the silicious, or glass 
Sponges and their allies. Of the animal nature of sponges but 
few naturalists doubt. Carter, an English microscopist believed 
that the sponge was an aggregation of Ameeba-like infusoria, liv- 
ing among a framework of silicious or limestone spicules. A 
little later, the lamented Professor H. J. Clark, of this country 
published, in 1866, a paper in which he maintained that the sponge 
