Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/358

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330
Insects.

vesicles the office of secreting the mucus which abundantly lubricates the bodies of these animals, and also that of supplying the ova with their cocoon-like coverings during the breeding season.

The loop-shaped glands before spoken of, are about seventeen in number: they lie in the spaces between the sacculi of the stomach and intestine, and each one receives a large branch from the lateral vessel, which ramifies over the exterior and keeps it firmly adherent to the blood-vessel: a small slender duct of communication connects the gland to the mucous sacs, (fig. 6). The glands, in the medicinal leech, are much larger and much less convoluted than in this species; in both, with a high power, they may be seen to be lined with a thick coating of epithelium, and to be largely supplied with blood-vessels, which has led many anatomists to suppose that some other office, more important perhaps than that of the secretion of mucus, must belong to this apparatus; but the skin, as w r ell as these glands, is liberally supplied with blood-vessels, so that the function of respiration would rather seem to be performed by both these systems of capillary vessels. John Quekett.

(To be continued).



Note on the occurrence of Colias Edusa in Devonshire. I have been chasing Colias Electra all the morning, but with no success, I am sorry to say. It is now half-past 11, A.M., and I have seen six specimens already this morning. They seem gifted with the speed of electricity or light at the least; I have almost given up all hopes of procuring any specimens. On the rugged cliffs of Teignmouth, whilst they are making a circuit round some bank, you can anticipate them by crossing it in a straight line; but here, on level ground, it seems impossible to catch them. They fly and you follow, but unless they settle, which is a forlorn hope indeed, I, at least, am soon completely distanced. However, it may not be without interest to the readers of ' The Zoologist,' to know that Colias Electra has been plentiful this year at Lympstone, Devonshire.—Robert C.R. Jordan; Lympstone, Devon, September 18, 1843.

Note on the occurrence of Colias Edusa, in Devonshire. On the 1st of September I was gratified by the sight of a splendid male Colias Edusa, which I did not expect. I had no net with me, or I might have caught it as it settled on a flower of Convolvulus sepium until I came up, but it was too cunning to allow itself to be taken by the hand.—Id.

Note on the occurrence of Colias Edusa in Sussex. I took a few specimens of this butterfly near Arundel, on the 20th of last month, and saw another a few days afterwards, but the heat was so great I was not inclined to chase him. I observed two specimens on the banks of the south-western railway, between Wandsworth and Wimbledon, about a fortnight since.—Samuel Stevens; 38, King St., Covent Garden, September 22, 1843.

Note on the occurrence of Colias Edusa in Leicestershire. Last Friday, the 29th of