MISCELLANEOUS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 
583 
between the expanding of the flowers and the giving off of the 
scent, but in the warmer weather the odour would hang about the 
plant for some little time after the flowers were closed. It would 
seem therefore that the absence of heat, and not the absence of light, 
was the cause which influenced the opening of the flowers and the 
giving off of perfume and the difference in the temperature between 
night and morning would be much more marked in the Cape of 
Good Hope which is the habitat of the plant. A telegram describ- 
ing the difficulties of the march of the British troops in Somaliland, 
in the desert where Camel Thorns and Mimosa were thinly scattered, 
gives an illustration of this, — “much of the bush was in flower, 
burdening the air in the cooler hours with aromatic perfumes.” — 
W. H. Bidwell. 
The Siberian Jay (Garntlus [ Perisorius] inf oust us ). — Professor 
Newton having questioned the determination of the supposed 
Heron’s feather in a nest of the Siberian Jay ( G . infaustus) in the 
notes on that species communicated to our ‘Transactions’ (vol. vii. 
p. 3G8), 1 have carefully re-examined it with the assistance of Mr. 
Southwell and Mr. Reeve. It is about four inches long, and slightly 
faded with age, and I find that it conies nearest to the back feathers 
of a Crane ( Grus communis ), and to that species there is little doubt 
that it belongs. 
This Jay’s nest is § 2609 of * The Ootheca Wolleyana,’ vol. i. 
p. 484, and was obtained in Lapland where Ardea cinerea is not 
found, although it breeds in the south of Norway, and perhaps is 
not very uncommon at Lesje Vcerk where my companion met with 
at least one pair of Herons. 
It appears from the narrative in ‘ Ootheca Wolleyana ’ that a con- 
siderable interest attaches to this nest. It was taken in Lapland 
on April 30th, 1856, by one Peter Nilsson who was hewing wood. 
He felled a small spruce fir-tree, and on beginning to lop off the 
branches, saw two Jay’s eggs lying on the snow, and then the nest 
itself among the branches. The Kuuhi as he terms the bird sat 
fast although the tree was on the ground, and when Peter drove 
her off there were still two eggs in the nest : all four are now in 
the Cambridge Museum. — J. H. Gurney. 
Cardamine palustris, Peterm. — Mr. Arthur Bennett has 
identified a specimen of this plant, which I sent him from the 
neighbourhood of Norwich, as being near var. : dent at a Schult. 
He writes “ the plate in Eng. Bot. of C. pratensis, L. represents 
