156 



Miscellaneous. 



mentioned person last spring in the fens of Cambridgeshire ; these 

 were all that were procured. 



The following is a short specific description : — 



Sylvia luscinioides , Savi (Pseudoluscinia Savi, Bonap.). 



General colour above castaneous brown, with the tail very incon- 

 spicuously barred with darker ; line over the eyes, breast, sides and 

 under tail-coverts paler than the upper parts ; throat and middle of 

 the abdomen albescent, the former slightly spotted triangularly with 

 darker. The first quill very short, and the second longest of all. 

 Upper mandible brown, lower and feet yellowish brown. 



Total length, 5J; bill, -f^ ; wings, ; tail, tarsi, 



George Robert Gray. 



PHYSOPHORES. 



Mr. Milne Edwards believes that these are not single animals, 

 but the aggregation of a great number of individuals growing by 

 buds, and living united together like the compound Polypes. — Ed- 

 wards, Ann. Sc. Nat. 1840. 



ECHINIDjE. 



Mr. M. Edwards and Dr. Peters have discovered that the Echinidte 

 are of separate sexes : the testicles differ little from the ovaries, but 

 they contain a white milky fluid, while that of the ovaries is orange. 

 -—Edwards, Ann. Sc. Nat. 1840, p. 196. 



CARINARIA. 



According to Mr. Edwards, the nervous system is much more 

 complicated than in any other Gasteropodes ; besides the labial gan- 

 glions, the cerebral, and the subcesophageal, there are a pair of optic 

 ganglions, a pair of ophthalmic, a pair of hepatic and a subanal gan- 

 glion. Lastly, they have stomato-gastric nerves analogous to those 

 which have been observed in Crustacea, and in many other inverte- 

 brated animals. — Ann. Sc. Nat. 1840, p. 196. 



HISTORY OF MOLLUSCA. 



M. De Blainville has lately published some extracts from M. Dufo's 

 observations on the habits of mollusca ; in which he remarks that 

 this gentleman has observed that the eggs of Achatina Mauritiana 

 are disposed in the form of a column, forming a more or less length- 

 ened series ; that Helix unidentata and H. Studmanni are ovoviviparous ; 

 that some species of Calyptraa are provided with a support distinct 

 from the rock on which they are placed ; that Hipponyx sometimes 

 hollows out the surface of the bodies to which it is attached ; and 

 that the Byssiferous bivalves sometimes detach their byssus thread by 

 thread. These remarks with regard to the Calyptrcea are very inter- 

 esting, as showing the affinity of the animal to the Hipponyces, which 

 have been proposed to be placed with the bivalves. The observa- 

 tions with respect to ovoviviparousness of some Helices and the habits 

 of the Hipponyces are not new to English malacologists. — J. E. Gray. 



