in waste ground; in old sheep and cattle corrals it is especially luxuriant, and grows sometimes so thick and strong that even a horse has difficulty in forcing his way through it. It closely resembles M. rotundifolia L.

Several genera of Onagraceæ are abundant in species and specimens, Enothoera and Godetia being the most abundant. A small plant belonging to this order, Clarkia elegans Dougl., is found in shady cañons, and is remarkable for its queer-shaped, handsome, purple flowers, and is often cultivated. The Zauschneria californica Presl., has bright red flowers, and adorns dry banks and hills in the summer. Isomeris arborea Nutt., one of the Capparidaceæ, is a small shrub with yellow flowers and inflated pods, and is very common near San Diego, flowering in November. A species of Hydrocotyle is very common in slowflowing streams, and its circular crenated leaves seem to float on the water, and amongst them are thousands of specimens of Azolla americana, covering the surface of the water with its green mantle for considerable spaces.

I have confined my attention in this article almost entirely to the herbs and shrubs, and have by no means exhausted the list of them. Species are very numerous in Southern California, and I may, another time, have something to say in regard to the trees and larger vegetation generally of the country.

:0:

PROGRESS OF AMERICAN CARCINOLOGY IN 1879.

A

BY J. S. KINGSLEY.

MERICAN science, when compared with that of Europe, does not present a very creditable appearance. In the physical sciences almost every country of the old world is far ahead of the United States. With geology it is about the same, while in biology, American work, with a few conspicuous exceptions, has not surpassed a low state of mediocrity. The pages of the numerous scientific journals are filled with descriptions of new species, faunal lists and even worse nonsense, while anatomical and embryological papers are few and far between, and even then the majority of them are fragmentary and abound in errors of observation. In the philosophy of biology, America has done almost nothing. It is not the place in an article of this series, to insti

tute an inquiry as to the reasons for this low condition of science. There is an institution in this country known as "The American Association for the Advancement of Science," surely a high sounding title; but would it not be well for the Association to begin to carry out its object? to do something for the advancement of science? Judging from the character of the papers published in its somewhat voluminous proceedings, it acts as a drag rather than an aid to progress. I might here add that aside from its grants of money to the Zoological and Geological Records, and to specialists to enable them to carry out certain lines of investigation, its British prototype is no more worthy of its pretentious name.

The American carcinological literature of 1879, may be considered under three heads, systematic, anatomical and developmental. Systematic papers have been published during the past year by Dr. Walter Faxon, Messrs. Oscar Harger, C. L. Herrick and J. S. Kingsley, Prof. A. S. Packard, Jr., Mr. John A. Ryder and Prof. S. I. Smith. Mr. Faxon gives an account of a species of Lucifer, provisionally referred to the species typus of Milne Edwards. Mr. Ryder describes as new Chirocephalus holmanii2 and Streptocephalus sealii, from New Jersey. Having seen specimens of the former species, I can say that it is not a species of Streptocephalus, as Dr. Packard seems to suspect, but truly belongs to the genus Chirocephalus, where Mr. Ryder placed it. Dr. Packard has recently proposed a new order, Phyllocarida, to receive Nebalia and its fossil allies; and in his recently issued Zoology has given a new classification of the Crustacea, which was repeated in outline in the December NATURALIST.

The work of Harger on the Isopoda of New England, Herrick on the Minnesota Entomostraca, and Smith on the New England Decapoda, have been already noticed in the NATURALIST, and hence need not be referred to again. Mr. Kingsley has contributed several short notes and reviews in the various numbers

1 Description of Lucifer typus M. Edw.? Chesapeake Zoological Laboratory; Scientific results of the Session of 1878, pp. 113-119, Pl. vII, 1879.

Description of a new species of Chirocephalus. Proc. Academy of Nat. Sci., Philadelphia, 1879, pp. 148-149.

3 Description of a new Branchipod, 1. c., 1879, pp. 200-202.

4 AMERICAN NATURALIST, XIV, p. 53 (1880).

5 AMERICAN NATURALIST, XIII, 128, and Annals and Mag. Nat. His., III, 459.

6 Zoology for Students and General Readers, N. Y., 1879.

of this journal, while in his paper on Decapoda,1 he describes as new, eight species, Microphrys error and Callinectes dubia from the west coast of America, and Mithraculus hirsutipes, Mithrax trispinosus, Lambrus granulatus, Panopeus packardii, Pilumnus dasypodus and P. melanacanthus from Florida. Notes are given on Anaptychus cornutus, Mithraculus areolatus, Mithrax triangulatus, Panopeus affinis, P. purpureus, Xantho 9-dentatus, Chlorodius fisheri, Pachygrapsus transversus, P. gracilis and Calappa convexa. In anatomy almost no work has been done. Dr. Packard in his Zoology, gives a résumé of the structure of the Crustacea, but the additions to our knowledge of these animals is slight. A figure is given showing the differences between the eyes and brain of the blind craw-fish (Cambarus pellucidus) and another species with well developed eyes. A brief account of the visceral anatomy of Serolis is given, to which we must take exception, it being erroneous in several particulars. The writer contributed to the same work, figures of the nervous anatomy of Idotea irrorata and of Serolis, but they show no important differences from similar figures of other species of Isopoda.

It is in embryology that the valuable portion of American work on the crabs has been done, and here we have to record three papers on the development of these animals; two by Dr. Faxon and one by Dr. W. K. Brooks. Dr. Faxon in his first paper2 gives figures showing the later egg-stages and the first stage after hatching of Hippa talpoida, so that with the previous paper of Prof. Smith on the same subject,3 we have a nearly complete life history of this species. In the first egg stage observed, the labrum, both pairs of antennæ, the mandibles and the telson are outlined (the "nauplius" stage). Both pairs of maxillæ and the first two pairs of maxillipeds appear previous to hatching, and in the first zoea stage no other appendages are indicated, but those mentioned acquire a greater development. The abdomen consists of four joints without appendages and the telson resembles somewhat strongly that of a larval shrimp. The gills are yet lacking, and although able to see the other vessels distinctly, our author could not discover the hepatic artery. Dr. Faxon 1 Notes on North American Decapods. Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., xx, pp. 145-160, 1879.

2 On some young stages in the development of Hippa, Porcellana and Pinnixa Bulletin of the Museum of Comp. Zoology, V, pp. 253-268, pls. I-V (June, 1879). 3 Transactions of the Connecticut Academy, III, pp. 311-342, pls. 45-48 (1877).

next discusses the growth of Polyonyx macrocheles. The last stages of the zoea obtained at Newport showed the enormously elongate spines of the carapax characteristic of the young of the porcelain crabs. All of the cephalothoracic appendages were present, the first two pairs of maxillipeds being large, biramose (schizopodal) and adapted for swimming. The third maxillipeds were rudimentary, and the ambulatory feet curled under the carapax. Six gills were noticed. The abdomen had six joints, and in the telson of those about to moult could be seen outlined the lacking segment with its appendages. From this stage the crab emerged at a moult without the intervention of a megalops stage. The young crab is nearly orbicular, and has not that "breadth of beam" characteristic of the adult, but resembles rather the genus Pisosoma of Stimpson. A bibliography of the embryology of the Porcellanidæ is given, but we notice that the figures of Guerin (in Ramon de la Sagra's Historia fisica, etc., de l'Ile de Cuba, Paris, 1857) are not mentioned. The last species in the present paper is Pinnixa chatopterana, which in the last zoeal stage has four long spines, one rostral, one dorsal and one from each posterolateral angle of the carapax, arranged much as in the oft-copied figures of the zoea of Carcinus mœnas. The cephalothoracic appendages have acquired a more or less complete development, the last six, however, being concealed much as in Polyonyx. From this stage the crab develops directly, the young, however, not having the enlarged fourth pair of feet which characterize the genus, though the family characters are recognizable. In a supplementary note it is stated, on the authority of Prof. Smith, that a second species of Pinnixa found on the New England coast passes through a megalops stage.

The same author has worked out more completely the development of the common prawn of our coast,1 and his paper forms a marked exception to the general poor quality of American biological work. In this species the cleavage of the yolk occurs in two planes almost synchronously, producing four cleavage spheres, from which the segmentation progresses regularly until the morula stage is reached. No polar vesicles were observed. The gastrula condition was discovered within twenty-four hours, but concerning the origin of the hypoblast we are told nothing.

1 On the Development of Palamonetes vulgaris. Bulletin Mus. Com. Zoöl., v, pp. 303-330, pls. I-IV (Sept., 1879).

The gastrula mouth soon closed. The first parts of the embryo to appear are the labrum, two pairs of antennæ, the mandibles and the abdomen, the latter very near the former position of the gastrula mouth. These parts appear almost simultaneously. Four days later both pairs of maxillæ and the first pair of maxillipeds have budded; in seven, the two remaining pairs of maxillipeds have appeared, all appendages showing a biramose character. The growth goes regularly on, the yolk being gradually absorbed, the eyes appearing at first as patches of dark pigment,' and when the prawn hatches there is a small simple eye at the base of the rostrum, the eyes proper are supported on short pedicels, the antennulæ are simple, the antennæ biramose, the future scale being much larger than the flagellum, the mandibles at no stage possess palpi. The scaphognathite (gill bailer) is in constant motion, though no gills are yet present. The three pairs of maxillipeds are two-branched, and their basal joints act as jaws, reminding one, as Dr. Faxon says, of the manducatory apparatus of Limulus. The ambulatory feet are represented by only two pairs of double sacks, the other three being undeveloped. The abdomen is six-jointed and without a trace of appendages. A moult brings two more ambulatory feet, and with the next exuviation the second antennal flagellum appears and the abdomen has seven joints, the sixth with its appendages appearing. After another moult two of the basal rostral teeth appear, the third pair of ambulatory feet acquire a natatory character, and the fourth and fifth pairs as well as the abdominal feet have budded. With two more moults the animal has acquired all its swimming feet, but differs from the Schizopoda (Mysis) in having the last pair simple, the exopodite being absent. In two or three more exuviations the exopodites are reduced to simple styles, and after a few more, the shrimp, then about eight millimetres long, acquires essentially the characters of the adult. Rostral teeth, however, continue to be added with growth.

Succeeding this account, summarized above, Dr. Faxon gives a critical review of the literature of the development of Palamon, and we think him right in disagreement with Mr. Spence Bate regarding the homologies of the three pairs of appendages which appear first in the Crustacean embryo.

I would here quote the foot-note on p. 308: "The development of the eye certainly lends no countenance to the idea that its stalk is an appendage homologous wit the antennæ, etc."