G. GENERAL NATURAL HISTORY AND ZOOLOGY. 153 



Bay, California, to Cape Blanco, Peru, and has three subdi- 

 visions or districts : the Mexican, covering the Gulf of Cali- 

 fornia, Cape St. Lucas, and the Mexican coast to Acapulco ; 

 the Panaman, including the coast of Central America and 

 the Bay of Panama; and the Ecuadoran, extending south- 

 ward from Panama Bay to Cape Blanco, Peru. The Galapa- 

 gos Province, according to Professor Verrill, may possibly be 

 a district of the preceding, but additional collections are nec- 

 essary to establish this point. The Peruvian Province, ex- 

 tending from Cape Blanco to Northern Chili, is apparently 

 well marked ; and the Chilian Province, embracing the mid- 

 dle coast of Chili, also has its peculiar fauna. The Arauca- 

 nian Province extends from Valdivia to the southwestern 

 coast of Patagonia ; while the last, or the Fuegian Province, 

 includes Southern California and the adjacent islands. Trans. 

 Conn. Acad., 1871. 



HATJGHTON ON ANIMAL MECHANICS. 



Professor Haughton, of Dublin, announces for immediate 

 publication his long-expected work on animal mechanics. 

 The author is well known as a comparative anatomist as 

 well as an excellent mathematician, two qualifications neces- 

 sary for the successful treatment of the subject. The Athe- 

 nceum is of the opinion that there has been no writer on ani- 

 mal mechanics since the time of Barrelli, in the seventeenth 

 century, so competent to discuss the subject as Dr. Haugh- 

 ton ; the brothers Weber, of Giessen, who have also written 

 on the subject, one of them an anatomist and the other a 

 mathematician, scarcely meeting the requirements in the 

 case. 15 ^4,1870, October 15, 504. 



HAECKEL ON ABIOGENESIS. 



Of all the disciples of the idea of the mechanical theoiy of 

 life, or of spontaneous generation, as connected, more or less, 

 with the Darwinian doctrine of evolution, one of the most 

 potent is Professor Ernst Haeckel, of Jena ; and his writings 

 in defense of the idea of abiogenesis are attracting much at- 

 tention. In a recent critical notice of his later publications 

 in Nature we find a statement of his views in this respect 

 which may be summed up, in his own words, in the following 

 striking, even if sometimes enigmatical, sentences: 



G2 



