"actinula" without going through a "planula stage, is not alluded to, the planula stage being given as a stage of all Hydroids (p. 66). On page 336" Didelphia" is used where Monodelphia is intended. The five diagrammatic figures on p. 225, given to illustrate birds (fowl), would serve better for mammalian embryology. The lists of works given at the end of each chapter are very incomplete and unsatisfactory, many of the latest and most important books being omitted from most of them. Thus under Hydroids the works of Hincks aud Allman, both of which contain much of importance on embryology, are omitted. The magnificent treatise on Tubularians by the latter is certainly one of the most important hitherto published, both for the embryology and structure of Hydroids. The recent extensive work on the Nemerteans by McIntosh is not mentioned, though it contains the embryology of the group. Cobbold's works are only once alluded to, and are not mentioned under those groups of Helminths upon which he has done the most. The very valuable works of G. O. Sars on various Crustacea, including the discovery of the very remarkable phenomena in the embryology of Cladocera, are not referred to. Most of these are works written in English, and should be well known to the author of a work on embryology. Certainly references to such works would have been more useful for most of his readers than those that he gives to special papers in the German and Russian periodicals, which are generally inaccessible, however valuable they may be. In spite of these defects the book will doubtless prove to be a very useful one, there being no other work in English covering the same ground.

V.

4. On some Remarkable Forms of Animal Life from the great deeps off the Norwegian Coast. II. Researches on the Structure and Affinity of the genus Brisinga, based on the study of a new species, Brisinga coronata; by GEORGE OSSIAN SARS, (University-Programme for the last half-year, 1875. Christiania).-In this valuable memoir, which is illustrated by seven excellent plates, Professor Sars has given a detailed description of the anatomy, physiology, and development of the genus Brisinga, perhaps the most remarkable form of star-fish hitherto discovered. The author also discusses, at considerable length, its relations to other starfishes, recent and fossil, as well as to Echinoderms in general, and the relation of Echinoderms to the Annelids. He regards Brisinga as the most generalized form of star-fish, and consequently of Echinoderms, and supposes it to be one of the little-modified survivors of a primitive type from which the other forms of Echinoderms have descended. It has affinities to the most ancient fossil starfishes of the Palæozoic rocks (Protuster, etc.)

The existence of a genuine vascular system, distinct from the general perivisceral cavity and its extensions, is denied both in the case of this genus and of other star-fishes. The author also states that there is no anal orifice, although there is, as in other starfishes, a dorsal gland, with a narrow duct opening on the dorsal surface, and he suggests that this duct has in other star-fishes been

mistaken for an intestine, and its outlet for an anus, the existence of which, in any star-fish, he doubts. Prof. Sars adopts the view, previously advanced by Duvernoy, Huxley, and Hæckel, that an Echinoderm is a cluster (or "comus") composed of several articulated zooids ("persons") united by their anterior ends.

V.

5. A Course of Practical Instruction in Elementary Biology; by T. H. HUXLEY, assisted by H. N. MARTIN. 268 pp. small 8vo, without illustrations. (Macmillan & Co.) 1875.-The publishers have seen fit to over-burden this otherwise excellent little manual with an exorbitant price ($2.50 in the U. S.), which will doubtless prevent its adoption in many cases where it should be used. It contains very full descriptions of the structure of a number of diverse forms of plants and animals, with plain and explicit directions how to dissect and study them.

V.

6. Crustacea of Mexico and Central America. Mission Scientifique au Mexique et dans l'Amérique Centrale, publié par ordre du Ministre de l'Instruction Publique. Etudes sur les Xiphosures et les Crustacés de la région Mexicane, par M. ALPHONSE MILNEEDWARDS. 4to, Paris: 1re et 2e livraisons, pp. 56, plates 1-14, 1873; 3 livr., pp. 57-120, plates 15-20, 1875.-These memoirs are published in the same elaborate and sumptuous style as the other works of this series, and are by far the most extensive and important contribution yet made to our knowledge of the crustaceans of the tropical region of America. The first forty pages and twelve plates are devoted to an elaborate study of the anatomy of Limulus, the substance of which had previously appeared in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles during the delay in the publication of the present work. The second memoir is devoted to a systematic account of the stalk-eyed Crustacea of the Mexican region, including Central America, Lower California, the Galapagos, and the West Indies. This memoir, beginning with the Maioidea, treats, thus far, of the Pericerina, Pisine, and Mithracinæ, including twenty-three genera, or sub-genera, and seventy-four species. A large proportion of the species are represented on the plates by beautiful figures of the entire animals, and numerous details. Twelve of the species and five of the genera are described as new. The author states, in the introduction, that a large part of the collections obtained by the Mexican Commission were destroyed, during the bombardment of Paris, by the explosion of a Prussian shell which had passed through the cases containing the conchological collections. On this account the work is based to a considerable extent on collections received from the United States, particularly from the Smithsonian Institution and the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge.

S. I. S.

7. Cumacea from great depths in the Arctic Ocean; by G. O. SARS. 12 pp. 4to, with 4 plates. (From the Svenska VetenskapsAkademiens Handlingar, Bandet xi; Stockholm, 1873.)-This is the third of Professor Sars's richly illustrated memoirs on the Cumacea, and treats of five species from the Arctic Ocean. Diastylis polaris and D. stygia are from the remarkable depths of 950 and 2600 fathoms respectively.

S. I. S.

8. Moa or Dinornis of New Zealand.-Remains of skeletons of fifteen Moas have been discovered along the beach, north of Whangarei Heads, sixty miles north of Auckland. Several human skulls and a complete human skeleton in sitting posture (the usual burying posture among the natives) were found with the Moa bones. Previously, no Moa bones had been found north of Auckland.-Nature, Feb. 3.

9. Carnivorous Reptiles having some features of Carnivorous Mammals from the Triassic (?) of South Africa. Professor OWEN has described, in a paper read before the Geological Society of London on February 2d, a carnivorous reptile, named by him Cynodracon major, which has the compressed sabre-shaped canines of the Lion of the genus Macharodus, and resembles Carnivores both in the canines and incisors. In the lower jaw the bases of eight incisors and of two canines (very inferior in size to the canines of the upper jaw) are visible, and the canines are separated by a diastema from the incisors. In this character, as in the number of incisors, the fossil resembles a Didelphys. "The left humerus is 10 inches long, but is abraded at both extremities; it presents characters, in the ridges for muscular attachment, in the provision for the rotation of the forearm, and in the presence of a strong bony bridge for the protection of the main artery and nerve of the forearm, which resemble those occurring in carnivorous mammals, and especially in the Felidæ, although these peculiarities are associated with others having no mammalian resemblances." "Prof. Owen discusses these characters in detail, and indicates that there is, in the probably Triassic lacustrine deposits of South Africa, a whole group of genera (including Galesaurus, Cynochampsa, Lycosaurus, Tigrisuchus, Cynosuchus, Nythosaurus, Scaloposaurus, Procolophon, Gorgonops and Cynodracon), many represented by more than one species, and all carnivorous, which have more or less decided mammalian analogies; and to them he gives the general name of Theriodonts.

The common characters of the Theriodonts are as follows: dentition of the carnivorous type; incisors defined by position, and divided from the molars by a large laniariform canine on each side of both jaws, the lower canine crossing in front of the upper; no ecto-pterygoids; humerus with an entepicondylar foramen; digital formula of the fore foot 2, 3, 3, 3, 3 phalanges.-Proc. Geol. Soc. of Feb. 2, in Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., for March, 1876.

10. The Crustacean, Artemia salina, changed in some of its characters by changing the sultness of the water in which it lives. -W. J. SCHMANKEWITSCH announces, that by increasing the saltness of the water in which the Artemia salina lives, a modification goes on from generation to generation, until the caudal lobes finally disappear, and the form is that in the Artemia Mühlhansenii; and by reversing the process, the caudal lobes grow out again and become those of A. salina. In 1871 the salt marshes about Odessa contained great numbers of A. salina; the waters then marked only 8° Baumé. Afterward, on the repair of a dyke,

the saltness increased to 14° Baumé in the summer of 1872, and 25°, in August, 1874. The changes in the species were then first noted. The author afterward corroborated the fact by experiments on Artemiæ reared in captivity in water of which the saltness was gradually increased. A change also takes place, correspondingly, in the form of the branchiæ, and in the number of apodal segments. -Ann. Mag. N. H., March, 1876, from Zeitschr. wiss. Zool., xxv, Suppl. i, 1875, p. 103, pl. 6.

III. ASTRONOMY.

1. Astronomical and Meteorological Observations made during the year 1873, at the U. S. N. Observatory, with Appendix; RearAdmiral B. F. SANDS, Superintendent. Gov. Printing Office.

This volume contains the record of a year's work at the Observatory, and is evidently the record of first rate work. The Appendix by Professor Newcomb has been already noticed in our February Number.

If the use for several years of one value of the latitude of the Observatory for reducing observations, made by the mural circle, and of another value for observations made by the transit circle, were the deliberate choice of the Superintendent, astronomers would probably think his decision unwise. The same also must be said of using a different latitude each year for the final tables of north polar distances, derived from the observations of the transit circle. It would also look better, to say the least, if the results were given in the same denomination, instead of north-polar distance for one instrument, and declination for the other.

These things look not so much like the deliberate choice of the Superintendent, as the kind of little irregularities that must be expected from a system that makes little account of scientific fitness in appointing the Superintendent of a scientific institution. We hope for better things from the present Superintendent. H. A. N.

2. Auxiliary Tables for determining the angle of position of the sun's axis and the latitude and longitude of the Earth referred to the Sun's equator: by WARREN DE LA RUE; 20 pp. 4to, London, 1875. Printed for private circulation.

IV. MISCELLANEOUS SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE.

1. Third Report of the Settle Caves (Victoria Cave) Committee of Exploration; by R. H. TIDDEMAN. (Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1875.) -Mr. Tiddeman was Secretary of the Committee in charge of the exploration, the other members being Sir John Lubbock, Prof. Hughes, Prof. Dawkins, and Mr. L. C. Miall. The Victoria Cave afforded the preceding year, among remains of Ursus spelaus, U. ferox, Hyana, Rhinoceros hemitachus, Bison, Cervus elephas, and molars of Elephas antiquus, a bone pronounced by Prof. Busk to be a human fibula. Thick bowlder deposits covered the entrance to the cavern, and hence the remains were pronounced to

be pre-Glacial. This third Report states that great progress had finally been made in uncovering the glacial deposits at the entrance, in which were bowlders of all sizes up to several tons in weight. The question whether "these glacial deposits, which rest upon the older bone-beds containing the remains of extinct mammals and man, are in the position which they occupied at the close of the Glacial conditions, or have subsequently fallen into their present site," is answered by stating that the new facts "go to prove the first alternative." In one chamber (numbered D) the upper bone-bed afforded remains of the Badger, Horse, Pig, Reindeer, Goat or Sheep, and was peculiar in the abundance of Reindeer remains and the absence of the Elephant, Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus, Hyæna, as if it were of the Reindeer epoch, or later; the fower afforded bones of Hyena, Brown Bear (?), Elephas antiquus, Rhinoceros hemitachus, Hippopotamus, Bos primigenius; while, in both, there occur remains of Man, Fox, Grisly Bear and Red Deer. A piece of a human rib was found during the year in the lower bed, near where the fibula was taken out.

2. Air and its Relations to Life; by WALTER NOEL HARTLEY, F.C.S., Kings College, London. 263 pp. 12mo. New York, 1875. (D. Appleton & Co.)-This very readable little volume contains the substance of a course of six summer lectures delivered in 1874 at the Royal Institute of Great Britain. The author exhibits the rare faculty of presenting the results of exact science in a form perfectly intelligible and attractive to intelligent people not familiar with the technical language of science. The researches of the most trustworthy investigators are cited with good judgment from the days of Black and Lavoisier to those of Retenkofer, Angus Smith and Pasteur. Indeed it is not easy to say where else in English we can find so full a statement of the researches of Pasteur as in chapter four of Mr. Hartley's essay.

3. Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, Prof. F. V. HAYDEN in charge.-Bulletin No. 1, Vol. II, of this Survey has appeared It contains seven articles. Three, by, severally, Messrs. Holmes, Jackson and Bessels, treat of the Ancient Ruins of Southwestern Colorado, Utah and Arizona, and are illustrated with twenty-nine octavo plates, of cliff dwellings and other ruins, pottery, utensils, crania, etc. Of the remaining four, three are short articles on the Ute Indians, by E. A. Barber; and a fourth consists of descriptions of thirty-one new species of fossil Coleoptera from the Tertiary formations of the West, by S. H. Scudder. The volume is full of interesting facts in American Archæology, and the maps and plates illustrate well the subjects discussed.

3. Compressed Peat.-Peat pressed into blocks and made so compact that a cubic foot weighs 85 to 100 pounds, is manufactured by Mr. A. E. Barthel, of Detroit, Michigan, and sells for one and a half dollars per ton.

4. Report of the Superintendent of the U. S. Coast Survey, showing the progress of the Survey during 1872. This report contains 18 appendixes, among which we note the report of Assis