In all the lists of Dr. Maddow's photographs of microscopic objects, I fail to find any representing the Infusoria, Polyps, Rotifers, etc. Can lantern photos of these be had?-G. M. B.

POND LIFE IN NOTTINGHAMSHIRE.-Can any reader inform me where the best ponds, ditches, or streams, are to be found in Nottinghamshire for micro life, viz., Hydra viridis, Hydra fusca, Stentors, Vorticella, Volvox globator, Melicerta ringens, Desmidiacea, or Diatomacea? Any information on this point will be much valued.-W. H. P.

BRANCHED TENTACLE OF HYDRA.-Some months or so since, Mr. Dunn exhibited at the Birmingham Microscopists' and Naturalists' Union, a specimen of Hydra viridis, having a small tentacle growing out of one of the others, and looking like the letter Y. A short time after, I found two specimens of Hydra vulgaris having the same peculiarity, except that one branched out much nearer the base than the other. Another member of our society, Mr. Henry Hawkes, also found a specimen. As I have never read of anything of the kind, I should be glad to know if any one else has noticed a similar occurrence? I have mounted a specimen, and shall be happy to show it to any one calling on me at 33 Geach Street, Birmingham.-William Tylar.

WATER-VOLES (Arvicola amphibius).—I have often seen water-rats gnawing rushes at the edge of the water. They are plentiful along the banks of the Medway here.-H. Lamb, Maidstone.

PARADISE TREE.-The flower your correspondent F. S. mentions is an orchid and is indigenous to the Isthmus of Panama, and is rare, even in its native land. The plant grows to a height of about 4 feet, the flower being of a creamy white colour, exhaling a faint perfume. The petals of the flower are folded back, and in the centre are arranged in the exact shape of a small white dove with wings extended, as if just about to take flight. It is regarded with religious veneration in its native land, and the inhabitants have given it the name of "Espiritu Santo," the flower of the Holy Spirit, but I unfortunately do not know its scientific name. Of its existence there is no doubt at all; it is, I believe, growing at Chatsworth, and I know it is or was in the conservatories at Windsor.M. L. S., Pendleton.

NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS.

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now

TO CORRESPONDENTS AND EXCHANGERS.-As publish SCIENCE-GOSSIP earlier than heretofore, we cannot possibly insert in the following number any communications which reach us later than the 8th of the previous month. TO ANONYMOUS QUERISTS.-We receive so many queries which do not bear the writers' names that we are forced to adhere to our rule of not noticing them.

TO DEALERS AND OTHERS.-We are always glad to treat dealers in natural history objects on the same fair and general ground as amateurs, in so far as the "exchanges" offered are fair exchanges. But it is evident that, when their offers are simply disguised advertisements, for the purpose of evading the cost of advertising, an advantage is taken of our gratuitous insertion of "exchanges" which cannot be tolerated.

WE request that all exchanges may be signed with name (or initials) and full address at the end..

F. MARSHALL.-Morris's "History of British Birds." For price, consult the secondhand catalogues of W. P. Collins, 157 Great Portland Street, or W. Wesley, Essex Street, Strand.

A. S. B., AND OTHERS.-Perhaps you are not aware that furze may be found in blossom all round the year, under anything like favourable conditions. The furze sent is U. Europaus.

FAUX.-This is not an uncommon thing in bulbous plants, but occurs in the orchids more particularly.

C. FRED FOX.-The paper you mention on the "Cephalopoda of the Isle of Wight," by C. Parkinson, F.G.S., is to be found in No. 177 of this journal, viz., September 1879.

W. W. BLADEN.-Your name as author of the paper on "Nidification in Staffordshire," in our last number, was unfortunately omitted.

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G. E. ÉAST, JUN.-"The Natural History Journal" is not in existence. "The Annals and Magazine of Natural History (London: Taylor & Francis), price of an ordinary monthly number, 2s. 6d. "The Geological Record" (London: Taylor & Francis), is published annually to subscribers, price ros. 6d. E. C.-We cannot undertake correspondence of the kind you mention other than that connected with this column.

F. HARDING.-Get J. Harting's "Rambles in Search of Shells."

F. J. G.-Your letter with regard to M. B.'s exchange notice is the first we have received. We hope we shall not hear the like from others, which might render it necessary to take further steps.

B. B. (Bath).-Thanks for your note. Your address has been taken in case it might be wanted for future reference.

H. A. F.-For information as to works on the botany and natural history of Florida, apply to the editors of the "American Naturalist" (Philadelphia) or the "Botanical Gazette" (Indianapolis).

E. A.-We have received a number of letters replying to E. A.'s query about the blossoming of the artichoke in England. It blossomed at Croydon and elsewhere, besides the places alluded to in the notes now published.

J. RITCHIE.-(1) Grattan's "British Seaweeds" ("Bazaar" Office), published at 2s. 6d. Landsborough's "British Seaweeds," published at ros. 6d. by Lovell Reeve, coloured plates. (2) Stark's "Popular History of British Mosses" (Routledge), published at 10s. 6d., coloured plates. Many years ago a special number was published of SCIENCE-GOSSIP on Hepaticæ, by Dr. M. C. Cooke. It is now out of print, but may possibly be obtained through some scientific bookseller. Dr. Carrington's work on the Jungermanniacea is slowly coming out.

W. B.-Your specimen is Betula alba, or white birch.

H. H.-See articles in SCIENCE-GOSSIP on "Hybernation of Swallows," by Dr. C. C. Abbott.

J. B. B.-Your specimens are as follows: Xenodochus carbonarius, or Burnet leaf; 54, Polytrichum; 55, species of Pterogonium; 80, imperfect. Probably a pinnule of Aspidium falcatum.

P. O'K. (co. Clare).-Your specimens are the cup-moss lichen (Cenomyce pyxidata), the reindeer's horn lichen (Cladonia rangiferina), and catkins of the common club-moss (Lycopodium clavatum).

H. M.-Your specimen is the partition or septum of the fruit of the garden plant called Honesty.

M. A. M.-The specimen you enclosed is a fragment of the egg-capsules of the common whelk (Buccinum undatum). See Taylor's "Half-hours at the Seaside," for figures and description.

F. R.-Your slide of specimen was smashed. "The white object attached to a pebble" and "dropt by a male bird,” is the entire mass of egg-capsules of the white whelk, referred to above. The other object is a fresh-water alga, showing oogonia. F. W. C.-See recent numbers of "Nature" for letters on lantern screens. A lantern-microscope would be very helpful to you in your difficulty. Apply to Messrs. Chatto & Windus for Hepworth's cheap treatise on the Magic Lantern, and how to work it.

S. J. M.-The following are excellent works connected with Sericulture: "Report in regard to the Manufacture of Raw Silk, &c., in India," 1836. "Cultivation of Silk in Australia, Sydney," 1870, "Silk Culture in Japan," "Roxburghe's Account of the Silkworms of Bengal,' La Sériculture," by Bavier, Lyons, 1874. You had better apply for any of these or other books on the subject, to B. Quaritch or W. Wesley, scientific bookseller, Essex Street, Strand.

J. E. R.-Your exchanged note is not in hand.

E. H.-1st. Foreign Conchology by Chenu, published in French; Wood's "Index Testaceologica"; Sowerby's "Genera of Shells." The above are abundantly illustrated with coloured plates. 2nd. Any London dealer, or the Assistants in the Conchological Department of the Brit. Nat. Hist. Museum. For British mollusca, see Gwyn Jeffrey's work in five vols.

EXCHANGES.

GOOD botanical, histological, crystals, polariscopic, diatoms, fish scales and miscellaneous, microscopic slides for others as good of bacilli, entozoa, algæ, desmids, zoophytes, rocks, fossil woods.-B. Wells, Dalmain Road, Forest Hill.

WANTED, SCIENCE-GOSSIP, Nos. 230, 231. What offers for Balfour's "Outlines" and Paley's "Theology"?—F. Marshall, Benwick, March, Cambridgeshire.

ONE or two specimens of Testacella haliotidea, taken in this locality, which I am willing to forward alive or dead for another equally rare species.-F. Fenn, 20 Woodstock Road, Bedford Park, Chiswick, W.

I WILL send twelve packets of micro material in exchange for a well-mounted slide.-G. A. Barker, I Northwold Road, Clapton, E.

SCIENCE-GOSSIP, 1876-79, bound in cloth; 1880 in numbers; also 1881, Jan. to April, Nov., Dec.; 1882, Dec.; Coleman's "British Butterflies;" Wood's "Common Objects of the Country;" Wood's "British Moths;" Brown's "Astronomical Geology." All the above clean copies, though marked with a stamp; will exchange for micro apparatus or material, or for land and freshwater shells.-B. B. W., 23 Batoum Gardens, West Kensington Park, W.

WANTED, a good turntable: also skull of bull frog, and skeleton of full-sized common frog.-K., The Manse, Bollington, near Macclesfield.

WANTED, lantern photographic slides; will exchange six sculpture and twelve abbeys and cathedrals, six castles, and twelve others, send list; or will give microphotographs mounted on 3 X 1 polished slips for lantern slides.-R. Blakeborough, Guisborough.

A DOUBLE nose-piece to fit Hartnack's microscopes, made specially by Collins, Great Portland Street, almost new; "Hogg on the Microscope," 6th edition, as good as new. Wanted, last edition of Carpenter on "Beale on the Microscope in Medicine."-E. R. T, 24 St. Patrick's Hill, Cork.

WANTED, a pair of healthy bullfinches in exchange for either vol. iii., iv., v., or vi. of "Boys' Own Paper," in monthly parts, with plates and index in perfect order, or vols. i. and ii. of Imison's "Elements of Science and Art," bound in tree calf.E. P. Turner, 6 Dagnall Park Terrace, Selhurst, S.E.

MICRO slides: wing of Papilis Paris (green scales on rich brown ground) for other good slide. Please send box.A. Downes, Glenmore, Waverley Road, Bristol.

DUPLICATES: Amathusio phidippus, Aganisthos orion, Callidryas philas, Megalura peleus, Papilio thoas. Desiderata: other exotic butterflies, or pupa of British lepidoptera.-Joseph Anderson, jun., Chichester, Sussex.

FINE examples of Australian foraminifera, selected and named, including Discorbina, Valvulina, Clavalina, Patellina, Nubecularia, and other rarities. Desiderata: Carpentaria, Tinoporus, Cymbalopora, Hanerina, Cassidulina, or any of the rarer species. Also rich foraminiferal material from the Tertiary beds of England and the continent.-W. Howchin, Goodwood East, Adelaide, South Australia. Parcels in bulk can be sent for enclosure, addressed as above, to the care of R. Fenwick, Sutton Street, Commercial Road East, London.

WILL forward ant parasites in exchange for anything useful in microscopy.-H., i Madelaine Square, Liverpool. WANTED, a Rosszentmayer microscope stand. State exchange or price required to-S. C. L., 276 Middleton Road, Oldham.

"ENGLISH MECHANIC," Nos. 758 to 796, the following numbers missing, 770, 776, 788, 790; exchange for fine cock and hen bullfinch, or for a piping cock only. A printing machine and type also wanted.-E. P. Turner, 6 Dagnall Park Terrace, Selhurst.

WANTED, a hen ring-dove in exchange for a blue pigeon.Frederick Harding, Shipley House, 13 York Road, Eastbourne. WILL exchange one pair of blue pigeons for pair of dormice. -Frederick Harding, Shipley House, 13 York Road, Eastbourne.

FIRST twenty-four parts of "Entomologists' Monthly Magazine," foreign shells, a horn of rhinoceros, minerals, and sucking fish (remora, for foreign curios, or shells or micro slides.F. M., 69 Duke Street, Old Trafford, Manchester.

WANTED, gold and silver medals, and collections containing rare foreign postage stamps, in exchange for natural history specimens.-W. K. Mann, Wellington Terrace, Clifton, Bristol.

WANTED, following nests, with clutches of eggs: dipper, ring ouzel, nightingale, stonechat, whinchat, grasshopper warbler, woodlark, cirl bunting, hawfinch, goldfinch, lesser redpole, &c. Offered, eggs, insects, shells, and various natural history specimens.-W. K. Mann, Wellington Terrace, Clifton, Bristol.

WANTED, various eggs in quantities, and nests with clutches of eggs of uncommon species. Offered, British and exotic insects and shells.-W. K. Mann, Wellington Terrace, Clifton, Bristol.

L. C., Nos. 40, 1039, 1127, 1128, 1330, for exchange. Send lists to-H. Purefoy FitzGerald, M.C.S., North Hall, Basingstoke.

WANTED, the February and March, 1884, numbers of ScienceGOSSIP. State price or what wanted in exchange.-H. P. FitzGerald, M.C.S., North Hall, Basingstoke.

OFFERED, six vols. of "Knowledge," complete, up to December, 1884, first four bound, and a collection of birds' eggs, in exchange for a good half-inch micro objective and slides.C. B. Keene, All Saints, Derby.

WANTED, any articles of bric-a-brac, viz., coins, tokens, medals, seals, china, arms, armour, old Roman pottery, flint flakes, or stone or bronze weapons, in exchange for fossils, minerals, stuffed birds, &c.-F. Stanley, Margate.

WANTED, axial crystals, quartz plates, &c., for table polariscope, in exchange for lantern and micro slides.-H. E. Freeman, 60 Plimsoll Road, Finsbury Park, N.

BRITISH and Foreign birds' eggs offered for others not in collection. Dr. J. T. T. Reed, Ryhope, Durham co.

WILL exchange Goldsmith's "History of the Earth and Animated Nature," 4 vols., with plates, almost as good as new, for manuals of British botany or geology. What offers ?William Lyon, Broomhill Terrace, Keith.

"NATURE," vol. xi.; the first two vols. "Magazine of Art ;" also "Knowledge," two vols. of which are bound, Wanted, micro slides in exchange, apparatus, or offers.-H. Moulton, 37 Chancery Lane, London, W.C.

SCIENCE-GOSSIP, complete for 1883 and 1884, unbound. Wanted, Tyndall "On Sound," Wallace's "Natural Selection," or Deschanel's "Physics," vols. i. and ii.-F. R. Tennant, Port Hill, Stoke-on-Trent.

MICROSCOPE slides wanted in exchange for pair of photographs. General Gordon and Colonel Burnaby, coloured in oils on convex glasses, value 10s.-Mr. Ebbage, Watton, Norfolk.

VOL. II. "Christian Million," and several "Rare Bits" and "Tit Bits," in exchange for natural history books or apparatus. -Frederick Harding, Shipley House, York Road, Eastbourne.

SHILLING editions of Coleman's "Butterflies," Wood's "Moths," Wood's "Beetles," and the three last numbers of SCIENCE-GOSSIP with plates, will exchange for natural history books or apparatus.-Frederick Harding, Shipley House, York Road, Eastbourne.

A VERY fine and complete collection of fossils from the chalk of Surrey and Kent (specially rich in sharks' palate teeth, both in variety and number) together with a collection of minerals and crystals (including a group of amethyst crystals 40 inches in circumference, and a slab of flexible sandstone) will be exchanged for English coins in fine preservation.-A.B., 97 Burton Road, Stockwell, S.W.

"A LARGE number of shells in duplicate. Wanted, other shells, mounted molluscan palates, and back numbers of scientific journals.-S. C. Cockerell, 51 Woodstock Road, Bedford Park, Chiswick.

DESIDEBATA: S. oblonga, P. roseum, Vertigos, Acme marine shells, and vars. of nemoralis, hortensis, &c. Duplicates: Testacella haliotidea, Z. glaber, A. acicula, L. glutinosa, P. pusillum, &c.—S. C. Cockerell, 51 Woodstock Road, Bedford Park, W.

WANTED fossils, shells, or eggs, in exchange for chalk fossils, nummulites, Trigonia, Gibbosa, &c. Also beetles from Peru and Luscor; staghorn, Necrophorus vestigator, &c.—M. T. C., Wrasenham Vicarage, Swaffham, Norfolk.

OFFERED for other species, either British or foreign: H. revelata, Pisana, arbustorum, aspersa v. tenuior, P. contecta, L. neritoides, V. verrucosa, H. tuberculata (Herm), M. aciculatus, Cl. Rolphi, H. ventrosa, &c.-B. Tomlin, 59 Liverpool Road, Chester.

WANTED, SCIENCE-GOSSIP for 1884, complete with plates of microscopy, unbound. Offers, quite new: "Among the Wild Flowers," by Rev. H. Wood, or "Wild Flowers, where to find and how to know them," by Spencer Thomson, M.D., L.R.C.S.. F.B.S.E., or pressed specimens of two rare centaureas; C. calcitrapa and C. solstitialis.-Miss E. A., Dadnor, Ross.

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BOOKS, ETC., RECEIVED.

"The Worcester County Naturalist" (Mass.).-" Feuille des Jeunes Naturalistes."-" Canadian Science Monthly."-" The American Monthly Microscopical Journal."-" The Naturalist." -"Journal of Conchology."-" Journal of the New York Microscopical Society."-"Science."-" Report of the Entomologist." Catalogue of the Exhibit of Economic Entomology."- Proceedings of the Geologists' Association." "Canadian Entomologist."-" American Naturalist."-"The Microtomist's Vade-Mecum," by Arthur Bolles Lee (London: J. & A. Churchill).-"Transactions Herts. Nat. Hist. Soc.," vol. iii., parts 3 and 4.-"Report of S. London Entomolog, and Nat. Hist. Soc. for 1884."-"Proceedings of Acad. of Nat. Sciences of Philadelphia."-"Popular Science News."-Proceedings of the Holmesdale Natural History Club," 1881-1883. -"Handbook to the Geology of Shropshire," by J. D. La Touche (London: Ed. Stanford). Revista Scientifica " (Porto).

COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED UP TO IITH ULT. FROM:C. A. G.-A. S. B.-F. R.-F. H. L.-W. T.-F. M.-F. F.R. B.-S. F.-J. E. K.-J. B. B.-W. S. S. & Co.-E. H.J. H. C. R.-E. W. O'M.-W.-E. R. T.-E. P. T.-J. E. E. B.-J. A.-E. F.-S J. M'I.-W. P.-A. H. F.-A. A.W. H.-(H. A. K.)-G. A. B.-C. B.-H. B.-E. T. D.H. A. W.-F. S.-H. E. F.-B. B.-E. B. L. B.-H. A. F.H. P. F.-M. E. P.-S. C. L.-G. W. B.-J. A.-F. J. G. J. R. R.-E. P. T.-A. R. W.-E. A.-B. T.-A. B.—F. H. J. W. O.- Mr. E.-H. F.-F. M.-D. B.-J. T. T. R.W. W. B.-W. H. P.-A. A.-C. T. M.-E. C.-M. L. S.F. R. T.-M. T. C.-G. E. E.-S. C. C.-H. M.-L. M. W.H. S. W.-J. R.-C. F. F.-H. W. K.-W. L.-C. B. K.A. M. P.-A. D.-W. K. M.-J. F.-H. L.-Dr. A. B. G. G. H.-O. P. C.-J. E.-A. D.-H. G. G.-G. E. T.M. W. N.-C. S.-W. H. H.-T. D. A. C.-H. H.-J. M. C.W. T.-T. S.-H. M.-C. M.-J. H.-B. B. W.-T. N. K.&c., &c.

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HE intimate relation of parts, and the manifest mechanical perfection of the structures of an Echinus, or seaurchin, renders the creature peculiarly adapted for interesting and contemplative microscopical investigation; every part has a curious fitness, and expediency may be revealed in all the more important organs; among other features, the character of the nearly globular box, containing the animal, built up of an enormous number of accurately-fitting plates, the calcareous pieces forming the mouth, the five sharp socketed incisor teeth, of great strength, arranged in a circle, and in such a position as to simultaneously close upon, and crush the hard crustaceous substances, or anything that comes in its way, as food; guided to the centre of the mouth by a similar number of interposing osseous processes, with jaws of such complex structure as to establish, with the dental system, a masticatory apparatus, unique in character and adaptability. Supporting this, and enclosing other softer tissues is the "lantern of Aristotle," a framework of five symmetrically curved bones with transverse ties firmly attached to the interior of the box, strengthened by a similar number of elegantly formed pieces rising from the base; all the hard parts are formed on a pentagonal principle, a multiple of five; the whole locked together with mathematical precision; exteriorly, the interest is sustained by the prehensile suckers emerging through multitudinous No. 245.-MAY 1885.

apertures, and where least expected a disclosure of rare beauty in the structure of any one of the forest of hard spines with which the creature is completely surrounded; each capable of separate movement. A transverse section of such a spine, ground and polished, is the subject of the plate.

The case, or envelope of an Echinus consists of a somewhat flattened spherical box, made up of many hundred jointed pieces, the whole appearing like a single shell. In some species the texture is light and porous, in others considering the number of parts of exquisite solidity; five pairs of "ambulacral" plates, connected by well-marked sutures, traverse the shell in polar lines. This set of segments is perforated with many apertures for the emergence of prehensile locomotive suckers. Between each is a similar number of rather wider segments, the "interambulacral," accurately fitting the others; on these project a double row of knobs, or tubercles, on which the spines are articulated by a ball and socket joint. All the pieces forming the wonderful box are serrated, and compacted with minute precision, giving great strength; the actual substance of the shell is composed of calcareous material and silicates obtained from the sea, secreted by a soft organic membrane which invests and permeates every fissure. The spines are articulated to the tubercles on small polished nipples seen studding the outside of the interambulacral plates, and vary in form and size according to species; generally they are grooved horizontally.

Vertical cuttings of these organs are interesting; but their true beauty is only disclosed when transverse sections are made, carefully ground and polished to a requisite thinness; and so diversified are the patterns that a collection of many hundred specimens rarely discloses two absolutely alike, differences in appearance and complexity resulting from the position of the cutting, and its distance from the base or the apex; as the spine consists of a series of cones either of overlapping or inter-deposited growths, necessarily a section reveals annular bands in number equal to the cones included in the part where the cutting is

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