tered through the series. The author referred to the indications of depth of deposit and other conditions furnished by these Mollusca, and also to the resemblance presented by many of them to certain bivalves common in the same rocks, which he regarded as a sort of mimicry.

"Observations on Remains of the Mammoth and other Mammals from Northern Spain." By A. Leith Adams, Esq., M.B., F.R.S., F.G.S.

The remains noticed in this paper were obtained by MM. O'Reilly and Sullivan in a cavern discovered at about 12 metres from the surface, in the valley of Udias, near Santander, by a boring made through limestone in search of calamine. They were found elose to a mound of soil which had fallen down a funnel at one end of the cavity, and more or less buried in a bed of calamine which covered the floor. The cavern was evidently an enlarged joint or rockfissure, into which the entire carcasses, or else the living animals, had been precipitated from time to time. The author had identified among these remains numerous portions, including teeth, of Elephas primigenius, which is important as furnishing the first instance of the occurrence of that animal in Spain. He also recorded Bos primigenius and Cervus elaphus?, and stated that MM. O'Reilly and Sullivan mention a long curved tooth which he thought might be a canine of Hippopotamus.

February 7th, 1877.-Prof. P. Martin Duncan, M.B., F.R.S.,
President, in the Chair.

"On new Species of Belemnites and Salenia from the Middle Tertiaries of South Australia." By Ralph Tate, Esq., F.G.S.

The author noticed the occurrence in deposits of supposed Miocene age in South Australia of a species of Belemnite (Belemnites senescens) and a Salenia (S. tertiaria). These fossils were obtained from Aldenga, twenty-six miles south of Adelaide, on the east coast of St. Vincent's Gulf, where the long series of sea-cliffs contains an assemblage of fossils identical with that of the MurrayRiver beds. The Salenia is especially interesting on account of the discovery of a living species of the genus by the naturalists of the • Challenger.'

"On Mauisaurus Gardneri (Seeley), an Elasmosaurian from the base of the Gault at Folkestone." By Harry Govier Seeley, Esq., F.L.S., F.G.S.

The author described the skeleton of a great long-necked Saurian obtained by Mr. J. S. Gardner from the Gault of the cliff at Folkestone. The remains obtained included a tooth, a long series of vertebræ, some ribs, bones of the pectoral arch, the femur, and some phalanges, indicating a very large species, which the author

referred, with some doubt, to the genus Mauisaurus of Dr. Hector, founded upon a Saurian from the Cretaceous formation of New Zealand. He gave it the name of Mauisaurus Gardneri in honour of its discoverer. A small heap of pebbles was found in the neighbourhood of the ribs; and it was supposed that these had been contained in the stomach of the animal.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Note on the Femoral Brushes of the Mantida.
By Prof. J. WOOD-MASON.

SINCE the abstract* of my paper on these structures and their use was published, I have been enabled to consult M. Stål's memoir + entitled "Orthoptera quædam Africana ;" and I find that I have been anticipated as to the discovery-the brushes, or rather the setulose eminences which I call brushes, being thus described in a footnote to p. 382 of the work cited:"In latere interiore femorum anticorum Manto leorum adest apicem versus prope marginem inferiorem spatium parvum leviter convexum, oblongum, dense brevissimeque setulosum." M. Stål makes no suggestion as to the possible use of the brushes to the insects; but I have ascertained that they are exclusively used for keeping the eyes and ocelli in a functional condition, and that they are present in the young when these quit the egg.

A full account of my observations and experiments on numerous living specimens belonging to several genera (Schizocephala, Pseudomantis, Hierodula, &c.) will be given in my paper.

Calcutta, Dec. 22, 1876.

On the Development of the Antennae in the Pectinicorn Mantida. By Prof. J. WOOD-MASON.

The author shows that, down to the last change of skin but one, no difference is to be detected between the two sexes of Gongylus gongylodes, either in the form or in the proportional length of the antennæ, which in both male and female are identically the same simple and setaceous structures, consisting of two distinct basilar segments followed by a multitude of very short and ill-defined flagellar ones, but that shortly after this event these appendages in the male begin to thicken throughout that portion of their length which in the perfect insect is bipectinated, so as eventually to acquire a compressed spindle-shaped form; that this thickening is the outward manifestation of the growth going on beneath the

* P. A. S. B., June 1876, p. 123; and this Journal, vol. xviii. p. 438. + Efvers. af Kongl. Svenska Vetenskaps-Akademiens Förhandl. Stockholm, 1871, no. 3, sid. 375-401.

↑ P. A. S. B., August 1876, p. 170.

outermost layer of chitinous membrane (last skin), which, at an early date, pari passu with the formation of the new antennæ, tends to separate off from the rest, and thereafter serves as a capsule or sheath wherein the two series of pectinations are developed by a process of budding from the antennal segments between the basal 5 and the apical 12-15; that as the pectinations grow they press upon so as to distend the walls of the sheath, completely obliterating all traces of its previous segmentation; and that if the sheath be carefully dissected away when distention of its walls has proceeded almost to the bursting-point (last moult), the completely bipectinated antenna of the adult male is disclosed, but with the teeth of each comb all glued and compressed together and with the two striated plates thus formed apposed to one another at their free ends, so as to enclose a compressed spindle-shaped cavity.-Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, December 1876.

On the Power possessed by certain Mites, with or without Mouths, of living without Food through entire Phases of their Existence or even during their whole Lives. By M. MÉGNIN.

The specimens of Ixodes found adhering to animals, to whatever species they may belong, are always fecundated females-a fact which the author has ascertained by the examination of hundreds of individuals obtained from dogs, cattle, sheep, horses, different species of rodents, birds, reptiles, &c. He has frequently found adhering to the lower surface of these sucking females, another very different small Ixodes, which is entirely coriaceous, and is the male, the lip of which, forming an obtuse triangle with salient lateral angles, is introduced into the subthoracic vulva of the female, and serves as a guide to the penis (which emerges from its base), and at the same time as a means of firm sexual union instead of the copulatory suckers met with in many other mites.

The Ixodes are oviparous, and deposit a considerable number of eggs, not by the mouth as Latreille believed, on the testimony of Chabrier, but by a subthoracic vulva which opens close to the base of the rostrum, as demonstrated by M. Lucas (Ann. Soc. Ent. Franc. 1836, p. 630); but the mode of life and organization of the larvæ are quite unknown. The author found on an African ox an enormous female Ixodes ready to lay, and was thus enabled to study her numerous progeny. Between May 22 and June 23 this female laid 12,000 eggs filled with a brownish yellow vitelline matter, composed of granular polyhedric or rounded cells of very variable diameters. The average diameter of the ovospherical eggs was

millim.

The eggs hatched between July 25 and August 9, producing very active hexapod larvæ, with the rostrum apparently complete, an oval-triangular cephalothoracic plastron, furnished with a pair of eyes as in the mother, but quite destitute of stigmata and of the tracheary respiratory apparatus so visible in the adults. Five or six days before hatching, when the egg appeared still three fourths

filled with the vitellus, the author saw the abdominal integuments of the larvæ formed, completely enveloping the vitelline mass; and he then saw the hard parts of the skeleton thicken and become darker in colour, the abdomen, which was at first spheroidal, become flattened and regularly festooned behind, and the stomach and its symmetrical cæca formed, circumscribing the vitelline matter, which was gradually retracted, furnishing the material for new organs. That the business of nutrition went on actively in the bodies of these larvæ was shown by their depositing upon the glass much white matter, which proved to consist of alkaline urates. The mother had also produced a large quantity of similar excrement. The author states that these larvæ lived and digested for three months without his being able to induce them to take any nourishment; they lived on the provision derived from their mother, which was contained in the stomach.

These larvæ undergo their metamorphoses and become adult, when the males seek the females, fecundate them, and die without taking any food, which, indeed, the conversion of their rostrum into an accessory organ of copulation would prevent their doing; the females, either during or after fecundation, attach themselves to animals, from which they absorb the quantity of blood which enables them to acquire sometimes ten times their original size, and provides the materials for their numerous progeny, even throughout life in the case of the males.

The mouthless Acarina, which have been formed into the genera Hypopus, Homopus, Trichodactylus, Astoma, &c., but which the author has shown to be nymphs, also live without food in an analogous manner. Their bodies are filled with a granular amorphous matter, a sort of highly vitalized sarcode, produced by the liquefaction of the internal organs, and especially the muscles of the larvæ; life is sustained without loss, since there are no evacuations, in consequence of the complete absence of anal, respiratory, or other apertures, during the whole of this phase of their existence. The adult form which succeeds this phase is remarkable (especially in the case of the adult female) for great voracity; but many of the males, like those of Ixodes, eat very little or not at all, and the author believes that the males of Sarcoptes belong to the latter category.

M. Mégnin remarks that this fact is by no means without a parallel, and mentions the Ephemera and the Estridæ as furnishing cases in point. He also refers to the same category the astomatous and fertile form of the Phylloxera of the oak observed by M. Lichtenstein (Bull. Soc. Ent. Fr. 1876, p. 164).-Comptes Rendus, Nov. 20, 1876, p. 993.

Note on the Nidification of the Aye-Aye.

By MM. A. MILNE-EDWARDS and A. GRANDIDIER.

Any facts that may contribute towards a more complete knowledge of the aye-aye (Chiromys madagascariensis) deserve the

attention of zoologists. This mammal, the affinities of which have been long disputed, is still very rare. Travellers have scarcely ever studied it in the living state; and the observations they have been able to make upon its habits and manners are almost insignificant ; we therefore think it useful to indicate some new particulars as to its mode of life.

The aye-aye constructs in trees true nests resembling enormous ball-shaped birds' nests; and it is in the interior of these constructions that the female brings forth her young and nourishes it. We have just received one of these nests found by M. Soumagne, honorary consul of France in Madagascar, in the belt of forest situated halfway up the eastern slope of the great granitic mountain mass a short distance from Tamative. It is made with much care and art at the fork of several large branches of a dicotyledonous tree; its outer surface is formed of large rolled-up leaves of the Ravinala (or traveller's tree), which constitute a sort of impermeable covering and protect the interior, in which there is an accumulation of small twigs and dry leaves. The aperture is narrow and placed to one side. M. Soumagne surprised a female with her young one in this nest.

The most highly organized species of the Lemurine group (the Indrisine and true lemurs) always carry their young attached to the back or the breast, where it can easily reach the pectoral mammæ of the mother. The lower representatives of the order, however, are furnished with several pairs of mammæ, and they do not carry their young in this manner; they deposit them either in holes of trees (Lepilemures and Chirogalei) or in true nests (Microcebi). Each litter consists of several young, which remain for a considerable time confined to their retreat, without being able to accompany their parents. One of us has examined the nest of Microcebus myoxinus. It resembles on a small scale that of a crow, and is composed of small twigs interlaced, in the midst of which there is a depression with a bed of hairs, in which the young repose.

In its mode of nidification, therefore, the aye-aye closely approaches the more degraded representatives of the order Lemurina, and departs from the Indrisinæ and true Lemurs.-Comptes Rendus, Jan. 22, 1877, p. 196.

Note on the Phenomena of Digestion and on the Structure of the Digestive Apparatus in the Phalangida. By FÉLIX PLATEAU. (Abstract by the author.)

The Annals and Magazine of Natural History' have already given abstracts of several of my memoirs relating to the phenomena of digestion in the Articulata +. The present memoir is, properly speaking, only a detached chapter of a long series of researches on

* Bulletin de l'Académie Royale de Belgique, 45° année, 2o sér. tome xlii. p. 719, 1876.

† Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 4th series, vol. xvi. p. 152, (1875), vol. xviii. p. 355 (1876), vol. xviii. p. 437 (1876).