{*7} The hardest steel ever manufactured may, under the action of a blowpipe, be reduced to an impalpable powder, which will float readily in the atmospheric air.

{*8} The region of the Niger.  See Simmona’s Colonial Magazine .

{*9} The Myrmeleon-lion-ant.  The term “monster” is equally applicable to small abnormal things and to great, while such epithets as “vast” are merely comparative.  The cavern of the myrmeleon is vast in comparison with the hole of the common red ant.  A grain of silex is also a “rock.”

{*10} The Epidendron, Flos Aeris, of the family of the Orchideae, grows with merely the surface of its roots attached to a tree or other object, from which it derives no nutriment —­ subsisting altogether upon air.

{*11} The Parasites, such as the wonderful Rafflesia Arnaldii.

{*12} Schouw advocates a class of plants that grow upon living animals —­ the Plantae Epizoae.  Of this class are the Fuci and Algae.

Mr. J. B. Williams, of Salem, Mass., presented the “National Institute” with an insect from New Zealand, with the following description:  " ’The Hotte, a decided caterpillar, or worm, is found gnawing at the root of the Rota tree, with a plant growing out of its head.  This most peculiar and extraordinary insect travels up both the Rota and Ferriri trees, and entering into the top, eats its way, perforating the trunk of the trees until it reaches the root, and dies, or remains dormant, and the plant propagates out of its head; the body remains perfect and entire, of a harder substance than when alive.  From this insect the natives make a coloring for tattooing.

{*13} In mines and natural caves we find a species of cryptogamous fungus that emits an intense phosphorescence.

{*14} The orchis, scabius and valisneria.

{*15} The corolla of this flower (Aristolochia Clematitis), which is tubular, but terminating upwards in a ligulate limb, is inflated into a globular figure at the base.  The tubular part is internally beset with stiff hairs, pointing downwards.  The globular part contains the pistil, which consists merely of a germen and stigma, together with the surrounding stamens.  But the stamens, being shorter than the germen, cannot discharge the pollen so as to throw it upon the stigma, as the flower stands always upright till after impregnation.  And hence, without some additional and peculiar aid, the pollen must necessarily fan down to the bottom of the flower.  Now, the aid that nature has furnished in this case, is that of the Tiputa Pennicornis, a small insect, which entering the tube of the corrolla in quest of honey, descends to the bottom, and rummages about till it becomes quite covered with pollen; but not being able to force its way out again, owing to the downward position of the hairs, which converge to