440 
Notes. 
H. T. Fuchs (“ Verhandl. K. K. Geolog. Reichsanstalt ”) shows 
that the distinction between the littoral and the abysmal faunae 
depends not on temperature, but on light. Many abysmal forms 
are phosphorescent, but not a single littoral species. There are 
interesting relations between the abysmal forms and the faunae 
of caverns. 
H. W. P. Wilson (“ Flora ”) finds that in many plants the ex- 
cretion of carbonic acid decreases at once if a supply of oxygen 
is excluded. Hence the view that the carbonic acid exhaled by 
plants has its origin in inter-molecular decompositions, inde- 
dendent of the oxygen of the air, is untenable. 
Mrs. A. Kingsford, M.D. (“Light”) assures the world that 
she “ will scold ” on the Vivisection question. Who ever 
doubted it ? A certain “ Isabel de Steiger ” follows on the same 
side. We remind these talkative ladies of a truth uttered in the 
same number of “ Light” — “ The age of sentiment is not gone, 
but the age of sentiment without sense will have to go !” 
The “ Medical Press and Circular ” gives an account of a 
canary, belonging to Dr. J. McGrigor Croft, which, in addition 
to the usual song of its species, utters a number of sentences 
with remarkable clearness and precision. 
The same paper gives some curious instances of the “ com- 
mercial instincts” displayed by certain Scotch University 
professors. 
Prof. Bastin (“ Proc. Amer. Pharm. Assoc.”), whilst botanising 
with his class at the southern end of Lake Michigan, met with 
a curious case of atavism in Cypripedium spectabile , — a perfectly 
regular blossom growing on the same stem with one that has the 
ordinary form. It had three sepals, distinCt, and of equal size ; 
it had no lip, but the three nearly equal petals were shaped alike. 
The ovary was not twisted at all. Prof. Bastin considers that 
this monstrosity proves that the Cypripedium of the present day 
is derived from a remote ancestral form which was regular, or 
nearly so. 
The “ Mineralogical Magazine and journal” for February 
mentions, among minerals new to Britain, the following: — Hal- 
loysite, found in the Hospital Quarry, Elgin ; fibrolite, from the 
north-west side of Pressendye Hill, Aberdeenshire, and Clash- 
naree Hill, in Clova ; martite, found on the north-west shore of 
Bute ; turgite, in clay slate in the island of Kerrera, in Argyle- 
shire, and to the east of Oban ; and Xonaltite, found along with 
gyrolite near Kilfinnichan, Loch Scredin, Mull. 
