590. 
a bristle, resembling the feelers, or an- 
tenn of insects, as in the dagoecia. It 
contains only one seed. 
The sixth, called prostanthera, belongs 
to the fabiate tribe. The calyx is com- 
posed of two complete divisions, the 
largest of which proceeds towards the 
other, and covers it, as soon as the corol 
has dropt off. A filiform appendix pro- 
ceeds from underneath each of the an- 
thers. The fruit is, im every respect, si- 
milar to that of the genus prasium; but 
one thing very remarkable in this family 
of plants is, that the embryo, or corcle, 
is enclosed in a thick and fleshy albu- 
men, whilst in the other labiate plants, 
hitherto observed, it is naked. 
M. Beauvois having investigated cer- 
tain mushrooms, in all the various stages 
of their growth, found, that their forms 
became so much changed, at different 
periods, that several botanists had thence 
been led to place them in different ge- 
nera, according to the age at which they 
examined them: thus, according to this 
author, the rizomorpha of Persoon 1s 
only a mushroom in the second stage of 
its growth, and becomes a buletus at the 
third; the dematrium bombycinum of the 
same author becomes, at the termination 
ef some time, his mesenterica argentea. 
It then thickens, acquires a cellular tex- 
ture, so as to resemble a more, and, like 
the rizomorpha, at length becomes a bole- 
tus. . This plant, however, requires 
farther investigation. . 
The researches into natural history, 
we learn from this Report, thougk less nu- 
merous, during the present year, than 
those made in botany, are yet far from 
being uninteresting. 
M. de Beauvois has begun to publish 
an account of the insects which he col- 
lected, during his travels in Africa and 
America. Two numbers of this work 
have already made their appearance. M.' 
Cuvier intimates to the academy that 
he himself continues to pursue the re- 
searches, in which he has been engaged 
for several years, on the animals without 
vertebre, and on the fossil bones of qua- 
drupeds. 
* Tn the continuation of the first great 
division of his work, he has given, 
during the present year, the anatomy of 
seven genera; the scydlea, glaucus, eolides 
colimucia, limax, Linnea, and planorbus. 
Even the external appearance of the two 
first was little known, and the reporter 
has rectified several mistakes, into which 
naturalists had fallen concerning them. 
In the contmuation of the second part, 
Proceedings of Learned Societies. 
[July 1, 
he treats of the fossil bones of the bear, 
rhinoceros, and elephant. The bones of 
two species of bears, at present unknown, 
are found buried with those of the tiger, 
hyena, and other carnivorous animals, in 
a great number of caverns, in the mouns 
tains of Hungary and Germany. 
Bones of the rhinoceros and elephant 
are found in abundance in every part of 
our globe. 
Accounts have been transmitted to the 
author, from which it appears, that ele- 
phants’ bones have been dug up in more’ 
than six hundred places of the two con- 
tinents. Still more recently have thejaw- 
bones and tusks of these animals been 
found in the forest of Bondy, in digging 
the canal, intended to bring the waters 
of the river Ourgue to Paris. The far- 
ther we proceed towards the north, these 
bones are found in a still more perfect 
state of preservation, An island, situa~' 
ted in the Frezen Sea, is almost entirely 
composed of them. 
previously known; but the results of a 
comparison made by M. Cuvier between 
these fussil bones of the rhinoceros and 
elephant, with those of the same kind of 
animals existing ia Africa at the present 
day, clearly prove that the former: were 
of a different species from the latter. 
“Exclusive of the different structure of 
the muzzle, the fossil rhinoceros apr 
pears to have had much shorter legs, a 
larger and more elongated head, than 
the rhinoceros now known. The jaw- 
bones of the fossil elephant, as weil as 
the head, and particularly the alveola of 
the tusks, appear also to have been of a 
different structure from the same parts 
belonging to the present species; the 
proboscis also differs in its proportions. 
On the whole, the author thinks there 
is reason to conclude that these two spe- 
cies are now extinct, as well as many 
others whose bones he has examined, and 
of which ten or twelve species, deemed 
non-descripts by most naturalists, have 
been found with their bones encrusted 
in the plaster-quarries near Paris. 
He also thinks, there is reason to sup- 
pose, that these species have lived in the 
places where their bones are found, and 
that they have not been transported thi- 
ther by an inundation, as is generally 
supposed ; since these bones are notin 
the least worn down by friction. We 
should acquire a very superficial know- 
ledge of natural bodies, continues the re~ 
porter, and attain very imperfect ideas of 
the different phenomena they present, if 
we confined ourselves merely to the de- 
scription 
’ 
These facts were 
— 
—— ' 
