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busily upon each other. The sound was never heard except when this act was being performed, and at the time it was heard no other of the creatures was even seen engaged in any particular manner nor placed in any special or constant position, though they were repeatedly and carefully watched. When examined with a pocket lens, and with a low power of the compound microscope, the part of the Notonecta's legs, of which it made use at the time of the production of the sound, was seen to be covered with stiff hairs or other projections of its external covering. Further examination of the part was delayed until other specimens could be secured, and during this time the original was unfortunately lost. Yet notwithstanding that the examination was less complete than might have been wished, the opportunities of examining the action of the animal at the time it produced the sound were so numerous, that there can be no doubt that the noise was caused by rubbing the fore-legs together, a method which seems either very rare amongst insects, or to have been but rarely observed and recorded.

On the Admixture of Nervous and Muscular Fibres in the Nerves of the
Hirudo Medicinalis and other Leeches. By PETER REDFERN, M,D. Lond.,
F.R.C.S.L.

The author stated that very remarkable movements take place in the nerves of leeches after removal from the body, and that though they had been known to him since October 1847, when they were shown to him by Dr. Mandl, he believed that their existence is yet but little known. These movements have been demonstrated in the class of Histology in the University, and King's College, Aberdeen, for the past twelve years; the author informed Professor Goodsir of them in 1848, and showed them to Professor Paget's class at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1855. Mayer states that Hannover first observed them. Remak ascribed them to the contraction of muscular fibres within the nerve-sheath. Leuckart and Will have

observed similar phenomena in the nerves of insects and Naiads.

The author pointed out that the best method of showing these movements is to remove one or more of the ganglia and their branches from the gangliated cord of the leech, to dissect away the sheath very carefully with needles, so as to leave the ganglia and nerves perfectly bare and free from all adhering muscular fibres. On waiting for a short time, slow but very decided oscillatory movements of some of the nerve-trunks may be observed in almost every instance examined. These movements take place quite indifferently in the large cords connecting the ganglia, and in their gangliated and non-gangliated branches. The action of water elevates the neurilemma of the nerves into vesicles, and shows the cause of the oscillatory movements. The attention should be directed to the concave side of any of the branches of nerve which are curled, or to both sides of nerves which are oscillating; and one or more muscular fibres of the ordinary characters of the fibres of the leech may be seen in every moving nerve at one period or other of the action of the water. When the movement is compared with that which may be seen in ordinary muscular fibres of the leech when stimulated by the contact of water, the character of the two movements is found to be identical. The author has not seen movements continue for more than a few minutes in the dissected muscular fibres, but he has repeatedly watched them for half an hour, several times for 50 minutes, and once for 70 minutes, in the nerves of the leech. He gave no opinion on the purposes served by this peculiar mixture of nervous and muscular elements, where nervous elements alone were formerly supposed to exist, but expressed a desire that the members of the Association would make the occurrence more generally known, that, by the labours of a number of physiologists engaged in the examination of different animals, it may be determined to what extent in the animal kingdom these so-called elementary tissues are mingled, with the view of arriving at some plausible conjecture as to the nature of the end gained by such an arrangement.

On the Structure of the Otoliths of the Cod (Gadus Morrhua).
By PETER REDFERN, M.D.

From examination of the otoliths of the cod, haddock, flounder, salmon, and

various species of trout, it appears that their structure is similar, and therefore the otoliths of the cod may be taken as representing the rest. They require to be examined by making sections of them in three different directions in the usual manner: some of the sections should be left of considerable thickness, others should be made as thin as possible, that the general arrangement, as well as the minute structure, may be examined.

The great otolith of the cod is an elongated flattened body, convex on one side, concave on the other. In the natural position, the concave surface looks upwards, backwards, and a little outwards; the anterior extremity is wider than the posterior, and one edge straighter than the other; but both are curved, and the whole body is twisted, the concavity of the under surface being produced by a groove which runs obliquely along. The convex surface has a longitudinal ridge running along it, dividing it into two unequal parts, the smaller being bounded by the straighter edge. This otolith, when in position, appears to form one wall of an irregularly rounded osseous cavity, from the interior of which sonorous vibrations may be reflected upon the otolith and thus affect the nerves. Both surfaces, the concave one especially, present transversely directed flutings which run outwards to the edges of the body. The flutings are visible on the transverse, longitudinal, and horizontal sections. The appearances presented by such sections were shown by coloured drawings.

The longitudinal and transverse sections present dark lines passing completely through the otolith from one surface to the other, and dividing it into separate masses or lobes. Of these lines there are four, running longitudinally and seen on the transverse section; and nineteen running transversely, and seen on the longitudinal section, so that, on the supposition that the division is equal in all the parts of the otolith, it consists of seventy-six separate lobes. The lobes which are near the middle of the body have all their diameters nearly equal, but those near the margins are elongated with their long axis stretching out to the margin.

Each lobe is made up of complete concentric laminæ near its middle, and of partial parallel laminæ near its surface; the partial laminae of one system being interrupted where they are met by those of another system in the position of the lines before named.

The lamina are marked with striæ, which run perpendicularly to their surfaces, and indicate their formation of prisms or very thick-walled tubes.

In speaking of the development of otoliths and similar hard parts of animals, the author referred to the theories of formation of tissues from cells, and by a process of molecular coalescence, stating his belief that, by repeated examinations made at different periods, the mode of formation of these tissues might be clearly determined.

MISCELLANEOUS.

On the Disguises of Nature. By ANDREW MURRAY, Edinburgh. This paper was devoted to an inquiry into the laws by which the external forms of natural objects are regulated-as elucidated by an examination of the resemblances which certain animals and plants bear to other objects, animate and inanimate. These the author termed the disguises of nature, and separated them into those which imitated inanimate objects and those which took the appearance of other creatures. The chief part of the paper was occupied in discussing the former; and as regards them, the author suggested the principle of attraction as the direction in which a general law might be looked for. In examining the resemblances to inanimate objects, he brought together a great many curious and interesting examples of both; but it was chiefly with the imitations of inanimate objects that he occupied himself in his attempts to discover a law explanatory of the facts.

[This paper has been published in extenso in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal.]

GEOGRAPHY AND ETHNOLOGY.

On the Arabic-speaking Population of the World.
By A. AMEUNEY (a Syrian).

THE Arabic has 29 letters, which, with the combinations and the vowels, make about 36. Seven of these letters are, to a foreigner, exceedingly difficult to pronounce. The Arabic being an original language, it has, of course, the masculine and the feminine genders-and the dual. It has more. It has a personal pronoun, and a pronoun attached to the verb, like the Latin amo. It has feminine in the singular and in the plural to the verbs; so, if two people happen to be in the next room, and they were talking, you would know whether they be ladies or gentlemen, or whether one be a lady or a gentleman; or whether the speaker be a lady or a gentleman, or whether the party spoken to be a lady or a gentleman. Not so in any other language -partly only in Greek. We have singular, dual, and plural-plural below No. 10, and above No. 10; we have a plural of plurals, and a collective plural, and its plural. Let us see what we can do with these roots. Take the word love. We want to use it in English we add r, and make lover, or ing, and make loving; or prefix be, and make beloved; but you have to say the place of love, the cause of love, and the course of love (they say it never runs smooth)! You have kill, and a knife, and butcher, and slaughter-house! We have nine letters, say a, b, c, and, by adding or prefixing one or more of these to the original, we make a word-one for the place, one for the instrument, one for the cause, and one for the passion. Take the word love, again, as a verb. You can only say might, should, or would, love; cause to love, command to love, ask to be loved, to be passionately in love, and to fall in love. But with us, we have thirteen other letters, and, by prefixing or adding one or more to the original word, we change the meaning. We only change the accent of the noun, and make it a verb. You have something like it—a présent, and to presént, a récord, and to record. There are 65,000 words in the English Dictionary. We have 150,000 in the Arabic, and, when the derivatives are added, the language becomes really formidable. There are a few languages in which there are more than four or five names for an object. You have sword, scimitar, and cutlass, but we have 150 names for this instrument of death. We have 160 for an old woman, 120 for the hyena, and I should feel ashamed to tell you how many for the lion, the camel, and the horse. It is all very well for a poet, who wants to rhyme his verses, to have many words at his command, but the language becomes very formidable for the scholar and the foreigner. The Arabs did not differ from other primitive nations. They traded with, warred against, hated, and loved their neighbours. Their wars were mostly with the Persians and the Abyssinians, for their poems refer to these nations in particular. They had their national assemblies, as we have here now. There was one in particular like the British Association-that is, comparing small with great things. During the month of Moharem they ceased their wars, and they met at Ackos, where the great poets recited their poems, and arbitrators decided which was the first, second, and third best. The first was then inscribed in letters of gold, and hung up at the Kaaba. We have seven of these poems (Moallakât), and many other lesser ones. Few nations have ever produced their equal,-I speak not lightly of the poetry of other nations. It was my great desire to read Sir Walter Scott's poetry that urged me to learn the English language. I have read several of the best poets in English, French, Italian, and Latin, but all appear to me to write too much. An Arab poet says all he wishes to say in a few verses. I am sure all Arab poetry is burning with a strong passion. The wars of Arabs have ever been either for women or horses, and their poetry is full of expressions about them. The eyes, the lips, the breath, the neck, and skin of a woman have more names than I could tell you of. Terreack! breath of life; wine, coffee, water of life, and paradise. The Arabs in their native simplicity are frugal, can endure fatigue, hunger and thirst, but the Arab can never become rich, because he is so generous. From the days of Abraham to this day his great delight is to entertain strangers. They have no hotel charges. Brotherhood is one of their strong ties. One becomes a brother either by a present or service rendered. People who live in towns present—give to one of the chiefs, and he can travel amongst the tribes. Antar had made war on a tribe, defeated it, and was leading the people into captivity. A man called out to him, El Goman, Antar!—that is, The Covenant,

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Antar asked him, where and when he ever covenanted with him. "I was," said the man, once at such a well watering my horse. You came and wanted to do the same, but your rope was too short." Bread and salt is another thing; the refuge another. Whether Christianity ever made any great progress among them we do not know. There are, however, many Christian tribes, especially in Hauran and Korak. But as soon as Mohammed appeared, the Arab mind took a different turn, and they became a conquering race. They, in fact, burst the bounds of their desert, and went outthe Koran in one hand and the sword in the other-either submission or death. After a little while came the tribute, or redemption. People redeemed themselves by paying an annual tax (very small), and they lived in peace. Then they extended to Syria, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Tripoli, to the borders of the Alantire, &c. The Arabs are like the Anglo-Saxons; they conquer, give their language, manners, and customs to the conquered nation, and in a short time they make them Arabs.

On the Country to the West of the Caspian Sea. By Baron DE BODE.

On the Geography of Southern Peru. By W. BOLLaert.
On the Laws of Consanguinity and Descent of the Iroquois.
By Dr. W. CAMPS.

On the Relation of the Domesticated Animals to Civilization,
By J. CRAUFUrd.

Mr. C. showed the great service rendered to mankind by domesticated animals, in furnishing them with food, labour, and also clothing, entering into a number of statistics. The total value imported of articles of clothing, the produce of domes. ticated animals, was, in 1857, 34,000,000l. In the same year we imported raw and manufactured silk to the value of 19,400,000l. Other imported commodities amounted to 5,334,300l. Of domestic animals and their produce we imported in all, in that year, to the value of 44,000,000l.—still a small sum compared with that furnished by our own cattle. He hence concluded that civilization is deeply indebted to the domestication of animals.

Two Axe-heads in the possession of Mr. P. O. Callaghan were exhibited by Mr. R. CULL.

Remarks on the Inhabitants of the Tarai, at the foot of the Himalayas. By JOSEPH BARNARD DAVIS, F.S.A.

After a description of the extensive country skirting the base of the southern slope of the Himalayas, to which the name Tarai is applied, which varies in its breadth, character, and elevation, and also greatly in its productions, but is uniformly the seat of a malaria of a pestilent nature, so as to render it very poisonous to Europeans, and even to the natives of the plains of India, reference was made to a number of tribes of people, the constant inhabitants of the Tarai, who dwell there with impunity. From the native name for malaria, Arval, these tribes have acquired the designation of "Awalian Tribes," equivalent to those who breathe the awal unscathed. They are in general uncivilized people, without letters, with only few and simple arts, having a fermented drink made from rice or millet, and some few of them distilled spirits. They practise a rude and simple agriculture; spin, weave, and dye; the latter being the domestic employments of the women. These they treat with confidence, kindness, and respect; and in all the family relations they are exemplary.

Notwithstanding the pestiferous emanations, the Awalian tribes occupy the very districts in which these are evolved; they erect their dwellings there, clear the forests, chiefly by fire, cultivate the open grounds and depasture their herds in them all the year round," they not only live in them, but thrive in them." The Bodòs and Dhimals even allege that they could not endure the climate of the open plains below.

This singular property of resistance to pestilent emanations, a property enjoyed by 1859.

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many of the lower animals, is also a peculiarity of many of the tribes of India,-those called, for the sake of distinction, Turanian. The Kòls, the Bhils, the Gònds are all fine and healthy races of men. The Negro tribes inhabiting the great river-districts about the Gulf of Benin enjoy the same immunity; whilst Europeans cannot at all withstand the atmospheric poison, as was proved in a most lamentable manner by the Niger Expedition of 1841. When negroes are transported across the Atlantic, this extraordinary property still adheres to them, proving that it does not arise from any external influence whatever, but is an essential inherent quality. In the Southern States of America the negroes are almost insusceptible of malarious diseases, marsh fevers, and that pestilence, the yellow fever. And a still further proof of this being an original property of the race is afforded by the fact, that, among the mixed breeds, every degree, even the smallest, of African blood tends to diminish the susceptibility to these diseases. It is a physiological attribute of these malaria-resisting races of men, their blood being possessed of some chemical property or some vital force which counteracts and overcomes the morbific cause, and which is not further explicable. That it is native, inherent, and also incommunicable, except through the blood, cannot be questioned; and that it indicates essential differences among human races, too subtle for the scalpel of the anatomist to reveal, and far too recondite for the zoologist to appreciate, still congenital, demonstrable and ineffaceable,—is a matter well deserving the attention of anthropologists, especially as all the facts known afford no countenance to the assumption that these differences result from any secondary causes whatever. Negroes, so far from exhibiting any remarkable vigour of constitution, are always characterized, in all climates, by the prevalence of an asthenic type in their diseases; and the self-deluding presumed influence of vast lapse of time in developing resistance could in this case operate only in an opposite way, and that cumulatively and destructively, by impairing, debilitating, and deteriorating every succeeding generation more and more.

The paper was concluded by a description of the physical characters of the tribes inhabiting the Tarai, which was illustrated by a series of good coloured drawings, executed by a native artist, born in the great valley of Nepal.

On Meteorology, with reference to Travelling, and the Measurement of the Height of Mountains. By Admiral FITZROY.

On the Ethnology and Hieroglyphics of the Caledonians.
By Col. J. FORBES.

The author developed his views regarding what are called "Druid circles" in the following propositions:- 1. Whether found singly or in groups, those circles not surrounding moot-hills or tumuli were erected for places of worship. They were also used as places for the administration of justice, and for the assembly of councils. 2. The number of stones in these fanes had reference to the number of individuals or families; and perhaps, in circles of greater proportions, were according to the number of towns or tribes to be represented in the councils, or benefited by the sacrifices at any particular cromlech. 3. Some of the cromlechs contained altars within the area. Occasionally the altars formed part of the enclosing circle, and in other cases the altars were outside of the circle. 4. In the same fane there were altars to more than one deity. 5. The origin of these fanes cannot be traced in any country; and nowhere, except in the Old Testament, does history or rational tradition fix the period when, or the people by whom, any one of these monuments was erected. 6. Open to the weather, incapable of being covered, and with long avenues of approach, the form of these fanes has apparently been devised in Eastern countries possessing a clear sky and warm climate. 7. These heathen fanes of Britain were afterwards used as places of Christian worship, but cattle continued to be sacrificed in them. 8. These fanes were also used as burying-grounds for Christians.

Description of Ghadamès. By Consul S. FREEMAN.