BIOLOGY. 297 



on each side into 6 tooth-like projections. The lower jaw is pro- 

 vided with similar dental plates, but has no teeth in front ; the 

 rami are joined only by a tough skin. It is said to have flesh of 

 the color of salmon, and to be excellent eating, so that the settlers 

 have named it the "Burnett" or " Dawson salmon," from the two 

 Queensland rivers in which it is principally found. The native 

 name is given by Mr. Krefft as Baramoonda or Baramoondi. 

 The fish is stated to attain sometimes a length of 6 feet and up- 

 wards. Mr. Krefft has referred the fish to the genus Ceratodus, 

 a name established by Agassiz in his ** Poissons Fossiles " for the 

 indication of certain teeth which were then supposed to be those 

 of some kind of shark. Dr. Giinther, our best living authority on 

 the class of fishes, is, I believe, of opinion that, so far as the 

 structure of Ceratodus is known, there is nothing to show that 

 Mr. KreflVs decision is wrong, though it would appear to me to 

 have been better to have proposed a new generic name for this 

 animal. Nature. 



COMPARISON OF THE BRAINS OF MAN AND THE MAN-APES. 



The collections of Dr. J. B. Davis and Dr. Morton give the 

 following as the average internal capacity of the cranium in the 

 chief races: Teutonic family, 94 cubic inches; Esquimaux, 91 

 cubic inches ; Negroes, 85 cubic inches ; Australians and Tasma- 

 nians, 82 cubic inches; Bushmen, 77 cubic inches. These last 

 numbers, however, are deduced from comparatively few speci- 

 mens, and may be below the average, just as a small number of 

 Finns and Cossacks give 98 cubic inches, or considerably more 

 than that of the German races. It is evident, therefore, that the 

 absolute bulk of the brain is not necessarily much less in savage 

 than in civilized man, for Esquimaux skulls are known with a 

 capacity of 113 inches, or hardly less than the largest among 

 Europeans. While the largest Teutonic skull in Dr. Davis's col- 

 lection is 112.4 cubic inches, there is an Araucanian of 115.5, an 

 Esquimaux of 113.1, a Marquesan of 110.6. a Negro of 105.8, and 

 even an Australian of 104.5 cubic inches. But what is still more 

 extraordinary, the few remains yet known of pro-historic man do 

 not indicate any material diminution in the size of the brain-case. 

 A Swiss skull of the stone age, found in the lake dwelling of Mei- 

 len, corresponded exactly to that of a Swiss youth of the present 

 day. The celebrated Neanderthal skull had a larger circumfer- 

 ence than the average, and its capacity, indicating actual mass of 

 brain, is estimated to have been not less than 75 cubic inches, or 

 nearly the average of existing Australian crania. The Engis skull, 

 perhaps the oldest known, and which, according to Sir John Lub- 

 bock, "there seems no doubt was really contemporary with the 

 mammoth and the cave bear," is yet, according to Professor Hux- 

 ley, " a fair average skull, which might have belonged to a phi- 

 losopher, or might have contained the thoughtless brains of a 

 savage." Of the cave men of Les Eyzies, who were undoubtedly 

 contemporary with the reindeer in south of France, Professor Paul 



