and a small red-coloured stone shaped like a limpet, the only earthy matter in this animal. These small bones of the ear are conical, solid, of a rosé-red colour on the sides, flat and white on the base; their apex is rounded and curved backward, their length, breadth, and height, are about half a line. When cut, they appear white and translucent within, like the inner layers of an oyster shell; they are very slightly excavated in the centre of their flat base, and they dissolve with effervescence when touched with nitric acid, like other substances composed of carbonate of lime. The great nervous trunk accompanying the small artery in the central tube of the arms, the great ganglion, with about twenty nerves radiating from it, placed within the upper and back part of the mantle, and the other nerves and ganglia, were very conspicuous, and corresponded in distribution to those of the vulgaris. The specimen I dissected was a female, and the ovarium, consist ing of beautiful detached ramified trunks, enclosed in a wide membranous sac, occupied the lowest part of the general cavity of the body, as in the other céphalopodous animals. The ova, instead of being attached by their peduncles to a single point, as in the vulga→ ris (See Cuv. Mem. p. 31.), were attached to the extreme ramifications of about twenty branched trunks, which hung by separate stalks from the upper end of the membranous sac. The two reni form glands through which the oviducts pass, and which very probably secret the coverings of the ova, as in the skate and other fishes, and connect them together, were about the size of a pea, of the same dark colour as the lateral hearts, and were placed about half an inch from the lower end of the oviducts. The oviducts opened on each side about half way between the lateral hearts and the anus. Meteorological Observations made in Jamaica by the late JoHN LINDSAY, Esq. Surgeon, Jamaica. Communicated by W. C. TREVELYAN, Esq. M. W. S. &c. THE author of the following Tables is well known to the public. He published an account of the Epidemic Catarrh of the latter end of the year 1789, as it appeared in Jamaica, in Med. Com. vol. xvii. p. 499, 1792. Also, an account of the Germination and Raising of Ferns from Seed, Trans. Lin. Soc. vol. xi. p. 93, 1792; of the Quassia Polygama, or Bitter Wood of Jamaica; and, of the Cinchona brachycarpa, a new species of Jesuit's Bark, found in the same island, Trans. Soc. Edin. vol. iii. p. 205, 1794. A TABLE, shewing the Highest, Lowest and Medium Heat Thermometer, for Five Years, viz. 1786, 1787, 1788, 1789 tween Eight and Nine O'Clock at Night, by Fahrenheit's at Sunrise; between One and Two o'clock, P. M.; and be Monthly and Annual number of Days on which Rain or Thunder is mentioned 1785. 1786. 1787. 1788. 1789. 1790. 1791. 1792. 15 1 19 12 January February April Rain. Thun. Rain. Thun. Rain. Thun. Rain, Thun. Rain. Thun. Rain. Thun. Rain. Thun. Rain. Thun. ∞ 14 4 19 13 1 16 9 19 20 2 9 25 19 116 10 19 23 13 25 19 21 19 The greatest quantity of rain appears to have fallen be tween the months of May and November. Hail is mentioned in Mr Lindsay's Notes to have fallen on the 27th and 28th of August 1791. A smart shock of an earthquake, which lasted about half a minute, happened on 21st October. Another is mentioned on 1st July 1791. A Description of the genus Malesherbia of the Flora Peruvi ana; with Remarks on its Affinities. By Mr David Don, Libr. L. S.; Member of the Imperiał Academy Naturæ Curiosorum, of the Wernerian Nat. Hist. Society, &c. THE characters and habit of Malesherbia appear to me sufficiently important to establish it as the type of a distinct natural group, to which the name of Malesherbiaceæ may be given. The necessity of attending minutely to the structure, both of the flower and fruit, is now universally admitted; and I wish it were as generally allowed, that the object of the botanist should be rather to point out the real structure and affinities of individuals, than to attempt extensive and unnatural combinations, in the present infantine state of botanic science: for it must be admitted, that nothing is more injurious to a system, than the unnatural association, either of genera or species; and perhaps nothing has tended more to retard the advancement of systematic botany, than the fear of an unnecessary multiplication of names, thereby inducing the contracted notion of retaining entire many heterogeneous orders and genera. If we but turn our eyes over the pages of works professing to be general Systems of Plants, we will find abundant evidence of the justness of what has been advanced; and if we but consider how few individuals in any of the extensive genera or orders have been investigated with that care and precision by which the true nature of their parts, and their relative affinities, can alone be ascertained, we should not perhaps be so averse to their separation into smaller groups. The Malesherbiacea agree on the one hand with Passiflorea, and on the other with Turneraceae. They differ from the former in their erect ovula; in the insertion of the styles; in their ascending incumbent anthers; in the placentæ not extending above the separation of the valves; in their naked seeds; in their thick, fleshy, almost hemispherical cotyledons; and finally, by their great difference in habit, and by the absence of stipules at the base of the leaves. From the latter (Turneraceae), with which they agree well in habit, and in the structure of their fruit, in their erect ovula, in the structure of the anthers, and in the furrowed nature of their seed-covering; they are essen 3 tially distinguished by the presence of a corona, and in the persistent nature of the inner series of the floral envelope; by their incumbent anthers; by the insertion of the styles; by the pla centa being confined to the lower half of the capsule; by their straight embryo, and by the form of the cotyledons; and, lastly, by the absence of the fleshy scale (probably the rudiment of an arillus) at the base of the seed. The Malesherbiaceae appear to be related also in a certain degree to Loase, whose characters and affinities are yet but imperfectly understood. M. Auguste de St. Hilaire, in his valuable memoir on the affinities of the Cucurbitaceae, has already pointed out the affinity of Turneraceae and Loase to Passifloreæ. The genus Malesherbia was established by Ruiz and Pavon in their Genera Plantarum Flora Peruviana et Chilensis, pub lished in the year 1794, and dedicated to the memory of the unfortunate M. Lamoignon de Malesherbes, a distinguished philosopher, and a great lover of botany, who fell a victim to his zeal for the cause of justice and humanity, and for the ho nour and glory of his country, in the early part of the French Revolution. The genus was subsequently published by Cavanilles, in the fourth volume of his Icones Plantarum, under the name of Gynopleura; but what was his object in changing the name does not appear, neither is it a matter of any importance. I shall now proceed to give a botanical description of the group, which may equally be considered as that of the genus, MALESHERBIACEÆ. PASSIFLOREARUM genus, Juss. Perianthium monophyllum, tubulosum, membranaceum, inflatum, coloratum, nervis decem in limbo diffusè ramosissimis, è basi sursum peragratum: faux coronâ continuatâ brevissimâ membranacea v. acutè dentatâ v. 10-lobâ, laciniis 2-4-dentatis, ornata ; limbus duplici ordine 10-fidus, uterque persistens, patulus, æstivatione imbricatâ; interiore petaloideo, æstivatione convoluta. Stamina 5, hypogyna, exserta, apici columnæ inserta, laciniis interioribus perianthii opposita: filamenta filiformia, glabra, compressiuscula: anthera lineares, retusa, biloculares, filamentis mediatè annexæ, incumbenti-erecta: loculis parallelis, margine longitudinaliter dehiscentibus, ab insertione filamenti ad apicem ferè usque confluentibus. Pistillum: ovarium apici columnæ adnatum, subglobosum, obscure triangulare, uniloculare: ovulis erectis, biseriatim indefinitis, fu |