102 American Journal of Sciences and Arts. 
des Orobanches de la Flore d'Allemagne continued from torn- iv. p. 361, and not 
completed M. LEON DUFOUR, Notice sur le Sonchus scorzonerceformis, Lag. 
fSc pumila, Cav-J S- scorzonerceformis " is a plant peculiar to the Zone of 
Olives, and delights in warm and dry situations." Found by Dufour on the argilla- 
ceous hills of Peralta and Tudela in Southern Navarre ; described by Cavanilles 
from Valentian specimens, and by Lagasca gathered in Murcia. " The most sin- 
gular feature in the plant, only mentioned by Cavanilles, is presented by the extre- 
mities of the divisions of the leaves, whatever the age of the plant, terminating 
in a subulated point white as snow ; this is not occasioned by a peculiar gland 
or by down, but by a dry and white gangrene ; the juices being withdrawn from 
the extremities, and the fibre alone remaining, deprive it as it were of its green 
pulp." " This interesting sonchus presents another remarkable physiological 
fact. It is endowed with such exquisite irritability of some sub-epidermous glands , 
that the least pressure of the living plant, and sometimes touch only, causes 
small globules of milky juice to escape from the angles of the divisions of the 
leaves, and from the edges of the scales of the involucrum." M. Dufour consi- 
ders this kind or manner of irritability as yet unnoticed. C. G. NEESAB ESEN- 
BECK et C. MONTAGUE, Jungermannicarum herbarii Montagneani Species ex - 
posuerunt. The commencement only of a paper descriptive of the Jungermannia 
in the herbarium of the last mentioned botanist. 
American Journal of Sciences and Arts. Conducted by BENJAMIN 
SILLIMAN, M. D. LL. D. Vol. xxix. No. 2. January 1836. New- 
haven. London agent, O. Rich. 
I. Zoology. 
CHARLES Fox, of Durham, p. 291, Notice of some American Birds. A no- 
tice of some birds observed during a tour in North America . The author men- 
tions an instance of the young of Molothrus pecoris in the nest of Fringilla so- 
cialis, where both species were reared and attended to. Wilson and Audubon 
mention that this had never taken place. 
JUDGE SAMUEL WOODRUFF, p. 304, Notices in Natural History. Two no- 
tices, one upon a species of Snake supposed to be Col. sipedon, Linn, which 
the author found to be viviparous. The second, on what he terms the " Moult- 
ing of Snakes." It extends from the end of May to the end of September, the 
largest specimens moulting latest. In casting the skin he observed it done in 
the following manner by one kept in confinement : " After the animal, by pres- 
sing the part against the wires, had succeeded in thrusting back the skin three 
or four inches upon the neck, he left the wires, and throwing his body into a 
coil round itself, so as to embrace within it the last fold the inverted skin, with a 
strong muscular pressure, made at the same time a powerful effort, shot his 
body forward through the coils, which unfolded one after another, and thus drew 
off the entire skin." 
II. Botany. 
PROFESSOR C. DEWEY, Cartography. A continuation of the appendix to the 
above gentleman's paper on the North American carices, p. 245. One plate. 
