with me, and is one of the few innocent pleasures of youth which follows a man into maturer years, and upon which he can look back in the decline of life with feelings of pure and unalloyed joy. Man's constant companions in every outdoor occupation, cheering him with their plumage or their songs, affording him often a principal means of subsistenceit is little wonder that the study of the habits and instincts of birds should be a favourite one with all; and to him whose time is quietly and happily spent in the forests and the fields, it adds one of the truest zests to rural life.

ON THE STRUCTURE AND CIRCULATION OF
NITELLA TRANSLUCENS.

BY THE REV. FRED. HOWLETT, M.A., F.R.A.S.
(With a Coloured Plale.)

In an article in the INTELLECTUAL OBSERVER of April, 1866,
treating on the development of the ova of the common newt,
the writer observed, that if the ova be allowed to be deposited
among the slender and highly transparent sprays of the chara-
ceous plant Nitella translucens, some of the most striking
instances of both vegetable and animal circulation might be
witnessed at one and the same time, without any further
preparation than merely placing the plant and ova in a glass
trough, and submitting them to the microscope; and the
concluding page contained this remark: "But in connection
with the circulation of nitella, including also the remark-
able phenomenon of spontaneous movements exhibited in the
process of fertilization and fructification, so many beautiful
and singular facts stand forth, that it may well be worth while
to make them the subject of a separate paper."
"This, then,
it is our purpose to do in the article before us.

The ordinary botanist may very possibly not have included the humble submerged aquatic plant, now to be described, within the range of his investigations. It is not very commonly met with; and, when found, as seen by the unaided eye, there is not much to recommend it. Its flowering organs, if so they may be called, are but barely visible; nor is it possible to preserve it in one's herbarium. In its fresh and growing state it has, indeed, certain elegant characteristics, which, perhaps, will not have escaped the notice of one who may be a disciple at the same time both of Isaak Walton and of Linnæus; if, after having hooked some of it up from pond or lake, he may have deemed it not unworthy of a passing

a. b. Portions of Stem, as at A. B. ma.. 2 d'am. f' Antherial : aments, V.. immature Antherozoids, 4, d.am. f" Mature atto, 400 diam. g Detached Anteroz after Dr. Carpenter, ab ut su diam. i Nucule seed.