THE STRUCTURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE SKULL IN STURGEONS.-Professor W. K. Parker has been working out the development of the skull in Acipenser ruthenus and A. sturio, the Russian sterlet and the common sturgeon of the shores of Great Britain. The larvæ of the sterlet that were dissected varied from one-third to seven-twelfths of an inch in length, yet even in the smallest of these the cartilage was becoming consolidated. In the skull of the sturgeon the symplectic, which supports the mandibular and hyoid arches, is a separate cartilage, as in the Selachians, not a mere osseous center as in Lepidosteus and the Actinopteri; the peculiar modifications of the primary arches of the face show themselves during chondrification, thus the hyoid arch is from the first, inordinately large, yet in the larva the head of the great subdivided hyoid pier only articulates with the auditory capsule. There is no room for doubt that all the branchial arches are developed in the outer walls of the large respiratory pharynx, quite independently of the base of the skull and the fore part of the spinal column. Professor Parker declares that he has come to the conclusion that no true branchial or visceral arches exist in front of the mouth; the first cleft is that between mandible and hyoid, and the first arch, the mandibular. The true axis of the cranial skeleton ends under the fold of the mid-brain, and the "trabeculæ cranii" are merely fore-growths from the parachordals. In the sturgeons the ganoid scutes of the head are so far under the influence of the huge chondrocranium, to which they are applied, that they may be called frontal, parietal, etc., yet such scutes are not the exact homologues of the bones so named in the Actinopteri. The sturgeons, on the whole, stand between the Selachians and the bony ganoids, yet not directly in the line between the Selachians and the bony ganoids, and not directly in the line between any one family of the former and any one family of the latter. Larval sturgeons are miniature sharks in appearance, since for weeks they have a shark-like mouth, true teeth in the throat and on the lips, and very long exposed gills.

THE AMYLOLYTIC AND PROTEOLYTIC ACTIVITY OF PANCREATIC EXTRACTS.'-Dr. W. Roberts gives the result of his researches upon the Amylolytic (sugar-forming), and Proteolytic action of the pancreatic juices. Following Kuhne, he proposes to distinguish soluble ferments, devoid of powers of growth and multiplication, from organized ferments, such as yeast, by giving them the name of enzymes. The pancreas is the source of two enzymes, pancreatic diastase, and trypsin, which latter has the proteolytic power of converting casein into metacasein, which curdles by simple boiling. The pancreatic juice of the pig has great diastatic power, since it is capable of transforming four times its weight of dry starch at 40° C., to the point at which it no longer Proc. Royal Society. May 5th, 1881.

gives a color reaction with iodine, in five minutes. If the diastatic power of the pig's pancreatic juice be represented by 100, those of the ox and sheep, feeders on matters poor in starch, are respectively only eleven and twelve. Cold retards the action of the pancreatic juice; a temperature of from 30° to 45° C., is most favorable to diastetic, while one of 60° C. is most favorable to proteolytic or tryptic action; and these actions cease to take place at 70° C., and Sc° C., respectively. Double the quantity of an enzyme will do its work in half the time, while half the quantity will require double the time, but this rule of inverse proportion is controlled by the rule that an enzyme liberates its energy at a progressively retarded rate.

THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND.-The Bull. Soc. Zool. de France (1882) contains an interesting account of the birds of Heligoland, by M. E. de Selys Longchamps. Herr Gatke, secretary of the local government, is the resident ornithologist, and has collected 400 species out of the 500 known in Europe, including many examples of some of the rarest species. In his own words, "Birds from very different regions, from the north and south of Europe, and all the north of Asia and America, choose this solitary rock as a place of repose during their migrations." The island, a more or less clayey and ferruginous rock of lower iriassic age, of so little consistency that, at the rate it is wearing away, it will disappear in four or five hundred years, lies in the direct course of the birds which migrate every year from Southern Europe and Africa to the Arctic regions. As many as 15.000 larks were captured on the evening of Nov. 6, 1863. M. Gatke has proved, by the concordant dates of the captures of erratic birds, that these accidental migrations are regular up to a certain point, since for the same species they take place at the same time of the year, and in general consist of several species coming from the same geographical regions. Among the birds taken are Phyllopseuste boralis (Arctic Asia, N. E. America); Phyl, nitidus (Himalayas); Phyl. coronatus (Malaysia); Calamodyta agricola (India -not before observed in Europe); Cal. certhiola (coast of Sea of Ochotsk); Pluvialis virginicus (Alaska); Totanus rufescens (America), and Larus roseus, a circumpolar bird, lacking in most collections.

ZOOLOGICAL NOTES.-The Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science for October, contains a brief account, by Dr. R. Horst, with excellent figures, of the development of the European oyster. He claims, contrary to Lacaze Duthiers and W. K. Brooks, that the bivalve shell of Ostræa is originally unpaired, not developed from two separate halves, which afterwards unite and form a hinge. The thread cells and epidermis, with the lateral glands of Myxine, the hag-fish have been studied by J. E. Blomfield.The eye of Spondylus has been found by S. J. Hickson, to be

similar to, though less developed, than the eye of Pecten.--In the same journal, P. H. Carpenter continues his notes on Echinoderm morphology.——E. R. Lankester claims that he has discovered in the tail of Appendiculariæ, that the muscles are arranged in a series of segments (myomeres), seven in number, one corresponding to each pair of nerves given off by the axial nerve cord. --H. N. Moseley, from a study of the soft parts, finds that the corals Seriatophora and Pocillopora are genuine corals like Madrepores, as regarding the latter genus conarming Verrill's opinion as to their affinities.--The Cilio-flagellate Infusoria have been studied by Bergh, who proves that the external membrane or skeleton consists of cellulose, this being the first time that cellulose has been demonstrated in the cell-wall of the Protozoa. The protoplasm of these organisms says Prof. Parker, in his review of Bergh's work, is usually divided into ectoplasm and entoplasm. The latter has been found by Bergh to contain chlorophyll, diatomin (the yellowish-brown coloring matter of diatoms), and starch. Chlorophyll is already known to occur in many animals of widely separated groups; starch has hitherto been proved to exist only in the green Turbellarians, and diatomin has never before been known out of the vegetable kingdom. Bergh believes that in many genera of these infusoria, the nutrition is entirely like that of a plant, and that no solid nutriment is ever taken up. Bergh figures the lasso-cells or trichocysts of Polycricus, as originally discovered by Bütschli.——Mr. A. Agassiz, continues in the Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, his account of the young stages of osseous fishes. Many interesting points of relationship between the embryos of bony fishes and their fossil forms, have been traced by comparing the structure of the tail of the fish embryo, as it passes from the leptocardial stage through the various stages of heterocercality, to a so-called homocercal stage. This relation, says Agassiz, is very marked, and has led to some important generalizations. He finds, however, that the comparisons of the pectorals, or of the dorsal and anal fins does not lead to such interesting results, though as far as the pectoral fins are concerned, their resemblance in the early stages of the bony fish embryo to the Crossopterygian type of pectorals is very striking. Excellent figures are given of the very young striped bass, blue fish, butter fish, toad fish, goose fish, sculpin, lump fish, stickleback, cod, smelt, and a few others.--Besides an elaborate and beautifully illustrated article, with anatomical details on the larvae of mayflies, by A. Vayssiére, recent numbers of the Annales des Sciences Naturelles contain a continuation of A. Milne-Edwards memoir on the avi fauna of the Antarctic regions. The stomachal armature of the crab, Birgus latro, is described by M. Mocquard. The more notable articles in the number issued in August, are Rietsch's study of Sternaspis scutata; Fuch's paper on the fauna of deep seas, and Giglioli's essay on the deep-sea

fauna of the Mediterranean; there are besides, several ornitholog ical papers by Oustalet and others.--Zeitschrift für Wissenschaftliche Zoologie, August 1, contains an elaborate memoir by H. Ludwig, on the embryology of a star fish, Asteria gibbosa. There is throughout the Echinodermata a mode of development, which must be spoken of as a metamorphosis, all the larvæ being ciliated, with a mouth and anus on one side. The processes by which the primary larva is converted into the echinoderm appear to be essentially the same in all cases; all that happens in a more complicated history, being the fact that in the secondary larvæ there is an absorption of those larval parts which had themselves become secondary. The secondary characters are not to be regarded as having anything to do with the future organization of the echinoderm, but as adaptations proper to the larval life, and disappearing at its close. There is no true solid morula in the earliest phases of development, but a blastosphere with a unilaminate wall; the gastrula is formed by invagination. Especial attention is given to the mode of origin of the hydrocol, the blood vascular system and stomodæum, as well as the skeleton.

ENTOMOLOGY.1

A NEW RICE STALK-BORER: GENUS-GRINDING.-We quote the following from an article on a new Lepidopterous insect which, in the larva state, bores the stalks of rice. The article occurs in the annual report of the U. S. Entomologist for 1881-2, already printed :

We have had some difficulty in deciding as to the true specific determination of this insect, chiefly because of a close general re. semblance which it must possess to other species. Mr. Grote, when we showed him a specimen last autumn in New York, thought it might possibly be his Chilo crambidoides, while Professor Fernald determined it, from a specimen which we sent him, as Diphryx prolatella Grote, stating at the time that he might be wrong, but that, having seen Mr. Grote's type, he considered our insect identical with it so far as he could trust his recollection. The specific description of D. prolatella certainly does agree very closely with the species we are considering, which has also the mucronate clypeus of Diphryx, but in order to refer our insect to D. prolatella we must assume that Mr. Grote erected his new genus, Diphryx, on a mutilated specimen which had lost its maxillary and part of its labial palpi, for the genus is founded on short labial papi which hardly exceed the face, and the absence of maxillary palpi-characters decidedly exceptional and remarkable in the family. In order to settle the matter, therefore, we again referred, through Mr. Henry Edwards, a perfect specimen

This department is edited by Professor C. V. RILEY, Washington, D. C., to whom communications, books for notice, etc., should be sent.

2 N. Am. Moths, Bull. U. S. Geol. Survey; VI, No. 2, p. 273.

to Mr. Grote, who upon this second more careful examination decides that it is neither of the species mentioned, but an undescribed species of Chilo."

Accepting Mr. Grote's decision, we described the insect as Chulo oryzaellus, but ventured the following opinion: "As Mr. Grote's types are in London he may be mistaken even in his final opinion, and the careless marner in which he has often made other genera renders it quite possible that Diphryx is a myth, founded on an imperfect specimen as above indicated."

In order to get positive information on the point in doubt, we subsequently mailed specimens of our C. oryzaellus to Lord Walsingham, with the request that he compare them with the type of Diphrys prolatella. His Lordship promptly replies by date of October 1, 1882: I had no difficulty in finding this and ascertaining that you are completely justified in your conclusion that the Crambid No. 2557 [C. oryzaellus] is the same species. Grote's type is a female, and has the palpi (labial) broken off, the shorter maxillary palpi alone remaining."

It is apparent, therefore, that Mr. Grote not only founded the genus Diphryx on what has no existence in nature, but mistook, besides, the maxillary for labial palpi.

EFFECT OF PYRETHRUM UPON THE HEART-BEAT OF PLUSIA BRASSICÆ. While engaged in experimenting for Professor Riley, with different samples of Pyrethrum, upon various lepidopterous larvæ, in September of the present year, I was much interested in noting the enormous increase in the rapidity of the pulse which the poisoning occasioned with the larvae of the cabbage Plusia. These larvæ are so very delicate and transparent that the course of the vital fluid can be observed with ease, and repeated countings show the normal heart-beat to range between 44 and 68 per minute, averaging about 56. In the first convulsions from the effects of Pyrethrum the pulse immediately rose, and in the course of ten minutes reached from 150 to 164, and usually subsided in the next fifteen minutes to the neighborhood of 140. As the convulsionsceased the pulse fell but slightly, but became very weak, until, finally, it could be counted no longer. The last count before the heart ceased to beat, apparently through the paralyzing of its walls, showed a rate invariably of about 130 to the minute.--L. O. Howard.

A BUTTERFLY LARVA INJURIOUS TO PINE TREES.-In the course of some remarks recently made by Dr. H. A. Hagen before the Entomological Society of Ontario, at its meeting in Montreal, he gave an interesting statement of the injury of Pieris menapia to pine forests in Washington Territory, and particularlyin Colville valley, twelve miles from Spokan.

The caterpillar, found in all stages, destroys mostly the yellow