Natural Histor'j.~-'Zoologij. 391 
ed the interest of this very curious and important branch 
of natural science. Knowing what has just been stated, we 
were exceedingly surprised to meet with the following ab- 
surd and impertinent remarks in a book of Travels just pub- 
lished, and that too in Edinburgh : ‘‘ Museums, galleries of 
pictures, learned societies, and various collections of things that 
are not useful, abound in Berlin. One collection wEich deserves 
to be mentioned, from the evidence it affords of what learned 
triflers can employ themselves with, is a collection, in high preser- 
vation, of those worms which are sometimes found in the bowels 
of the human body, and whose existence there constitutes a par- 
ticular disease. A Professor Rudolph! is the collector. A si- 
milar collection exists in Vienna, whose collector is not only 
thought to be a man of industry, but of talent. These gentle- 
men must very much need a decent occupation. To bestow 
professorships on them, and to honour them, seems to me like 
the vain worship of an idol. There is but one step lower in 
which learned uselessness can go in its, filthy researches.” 
28. WliMe Swallow , — Dr Traill of Liverpool communi- 
cates to us the following fact. — On 22d August ISlQj I 
found in the nest of the Hlrundo rustica, at Greenbank, near 
this town, a perfectly white swallow, fully fledged. The nest 
contained another young bird of the usual colour. The 
plumage of the former was pure snow-white, with a gloss 
like sattin on the head, neck, wing-coverts and back. The 
animal was a perfect albino^ having red eyes, pale reddish 
beak and legs. On replacing it in the nest, it speedily fled 
away, but was instantly attacked by fifty or sixty common swal- 
lows, that appeared to peck at and buffet it so cruelly, that it 
took refuge in a tree, from which it was not easily raised. On 
again essaying its wings, its persecutors assembled round it in 
great numbers, accompanying it until distance concealed it from 
our sight. A few days after, it was shot near its former habi- 
tation, and both it and its brother swallow are now in my pos- 
session.” 
BOTANY. 
29. Primitive form of Vegetable Cells . — Kieser in a memoir 
On the original and peculiar form of the cells of plants,” 
