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NOTES. 
Agriculture. 
The Phylloxera Commission of the French Academy have 
resumed their labours after having suspended them for two years. 
They have been roused into aCtion by the increased ravages 
committed on French vines during the last summer and autumn. 
The Minister of Agriculture has allowed the Commission a cer- 
tain sum for expenses. Let us hope that their present labours 
will be more fruitful than their former ones. 
Biology. 
The blood of the OCtopus contains — instead of haemoglobin— 
haemocyanin, an organic compound containing copper, which 
here assumes the function fulfilled by iron in the circulation of 
the Vertebrates. 
The chestnut trees of the Cevennes are perishing in conse- 
quence of their roots being attacked by a fungus. The tannic 
acid present in the juices of the trees exudes, and forms black 
stains on the trunks and on the surface of the soil, whence this 
new epidemic is locally known as Maladie de Vencre. 
The celebrated botanist F. Cohn, in speaking of Anastatica 
jferochontica, said, “The rose of Jericho,” — which, in the first 
place, is not a rose, and which, secondly, is not found near 
Jericho. 
The well-known butterfly Colias Edusa (clouded yellow), which 
was in 1877 more plentiful in England than ever before, has 
been last year as remarkably and exceptionally scarce. 
M. V. D. Costes, in the “ Correspondance Scientifique,” sug- 
gests that ants have already passed through their stage of social 
progress, and, having reached the highest perfection consistent 
with their faculties, have now become stationary, and incapable 
of further advance. 
According to Mr. F. P. Pascoe (Entom. Mo. Mag.) a new 
species of Siderodactylus is ravaging vines in the Island of 
Ascension. It seems to have been imported from South Africa. 
M. L. Fredericq, in a paper communicated to the Academy of 
Sciences, maintains that the changes of colouration in the skin 
of the OCtopus have no correspondence with the faCts of mimetism, 
and resemble rather the changes produced in the human face by 
the emotions of fear or anger. 
M. Dareste has experimented on the suspension of life in the 
embryo chicken. He finds that in eggs taken from under a hen 
