i88 5 .] 
( 37i ) 
NOTES. 
A Vegetable Lubricant . — In the process of watching the ex- 
pansion of a terminal bud from a twig of the horse chestnut, I 
noticed a flocculent substance clothing the petioles of the inci- 
pient leaves. Wetted and submitted to a magnifying power of 
250 diameters, this substance presented the appearance of a con- 
voluted cluster of perfectly round, transparent snakes, the 
ophidian extremities being, of course, excepted. I was reminded 
of a similarly constructed lubricating substance which I had seen 
many years ago in a hymenomycetous fungus, Calocera viscosa, 
and suspected that the function was alike in both cases. The 
friction arising from the simultaneous forward and lateral thrusts 
in the bud of a horse chestnut might be injurious if naked sur- 
faces were in contact during the expansion. But what are the 
organs forming so perfect a lubricant ? Are they modified 
trichomes, — appendages of epidermal cells ? If only a secretion, 
like gum or mucilage, why should the snake-like forms be so 
definite ? The sticky gum outside the bud is not so constituted. 
— (Read before the Microscopical Society of Liverpool, May, 
1885, by Henry H. Higgins). 
The poison of scorpions, according to M. Joyeux Laffuie, acts 
exclusively on the nervous system. 
According to Prof. Thomas Meehan and M. Naudin (“ Amer. 
Naturalist”) sterility among hybrid plants is decidedly excep- 
tional. 
According to M. F. Folie (Academie Royale Belgique) a cur- 
rent of air rises from the point where it originates, and descends 
about the point where it terminates. 
The “Zoophilist” has recently made an outrageous attack 
upon Prof. Martin, of the John Hopkins University, and has 
received a richly deserved castigation. According to “ Science ” 
the societies which support the “ Zoophilist ” include not only 
“ ecclesiastical and courtly dignitaries, but , proh pudor ! scien- 
tific worthies.” 
According to a contemporary scorpions remain motionless if 
any person blows strongly upon them in a vertical direction. 
We have observed the same fadt in spiders and in various 
insedls. 
