POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



861 



If we looked at it from the front instead of 

 in section, its natural curvature would strike 

 every eye. M. Flammarion upheld his elec- 

 trical theory at the succeeding meeting of 

 the Academy, maintaining that no solution 

 of continuity had ever been remarked upon 

 any comet. The tail has always appeared 

 homogeneous, plane, still, like a beam of 

 electric light. He acknowledged that his 

 interpretation was hypothetical, but claimed 

 that his hypothesis was very probable. 

 Might not the electrical illumination, he 

 said, very intense in the nucleus, more fee- 

 ble in the immediate surrounding, be pro- 

 longed into space, impelled by the contrary 

 electrization of the sun ? The phenomena 

 of those long, imponderable, and transpar- 

 ent tails, hitherto unexplained, would then 

 be a simple luminous excitation of the ether. 



New Carboniferous Fossils. A consid- 

 erable addition to the fauna of the Lower 

 Carboniferous period has been made by the 

 recent discovery in the shales of Eskdale and 

 Liddesdale on the river Esk, in Scotland, of 

 the fossils of a larger number of new organ- 

 isms than have been obtained from the en- 

 tire Carboniferous system of Scotland for 

 years past. The remains are in an excel 

 lent state of preservation, and in some in- 

 stances are so admirably wrapped up in 

 thin matrices as to retain structures which 

 have never before been recognized in a fos- 

 sil state. Among them are twenty new spe- 

 cies, adding to science five new genera, of 

 ganoid fishes. One of the genera, Tarrasius, 

 is so peculiar that no place can be found 

 for it in any known famliy. Two specimens 

 have been found in such conditions as to 

 leave in doubt some important parts of 

 their structure. Associated with the skele- 

 tons of the fishes are some new phyllopod 

 and decapod crustaceans, one of them hav- 

 ing its intestinal canal distended with food. 

 Several new macrurous decapods occur that 

 differ in no essential respect from their liv- 

 ing representatives. Numerous and often 

 admirably preserved specimens of scorpions 

 have been found, of forms that do not differ 

 essentially, so far as regards external organs, 

 from the living scorpion. Mr. Peach, who 

 describes them, has recognized in them every 

 structure of the recent form, down even to 

 hairs and hooks on the feet. The sting 



alone has not been observed, but the poison- 

 gland has been found. The chief difference 

 lies in the larger proportion of their mesial 

 eyes to the lateral ones, and to the whole ani- 

 mal, than in the living form. These fossils 

 afford no more help in tracing the pedigree 

 of the scorpion than is furnished by the liv- 

 ing form, for they make it obvious that the 

 animal has remained with hardly any change 

 since Carboniferous times. It appears to be 

 the most ancient type of arachnid. Some spe- 

 cies must have included individuals eight or 

 ten inches in length. 



Animal Rctribntion. The Boston pa- 

 pers tell a curious story of the retribution 

 which recently came upon a buck, which, 

 by virtue of his superior strength and sa- 

 gacity, had exercised a tyrannous lordship 

 over the herd of deer on the Common, and 

 had thereby excited the hatred of the young- 

 er bucks. The time came when he had to 

 shed his horns. The other bucks gained 

 knowledge of the fact with a marvelous 

 quickness, gathered around him, made a 

 concerted attack upon him and speedily dis- 

 abled him, despite the gallant resistance he 

 tried to make. He was knocked down, 

 butted and kicked till his head and sides 

 streamed with blood, shoved this way and 

 that, with all the fury accompanying each 

 action that the pent-up spite of years could 

 render itself capable of, and, finally, was 

 reluctantly compelled to give up the ghost. 

 Several of the men employed on the Com- 

 mon and public grounds witnessed the af- 

 fray, and attempts were made to drive off 

 the old fellow's assailants, but it was of no 

 use. Each attempt was resented by the 

 infuriated deer, and every man who entered 

 the inclosure with pacific intentions was 

 obliged to flee for his life. The murder 

 having been consummated, the fury of the 

 animals became appeased, and the dead car- 

 cass was removed from the arena. 



Permanence of Vegetable Structures. 



Dr. Karl Miiller has recently observed a 

 very noteworthy instance of the permanence 

 of vegetable tissues in the case of specimens 

 of mosses that were taken from the ancient 

 viking ship which we described in our May 

 number as having been found last year 

 on the coast of Norway. The mosses had 



