ZOOLOGY. 365 



teresting paper of Professor Schaff'hausen, and, as he justly observes, 

 afford " one of the most striking proofs of the influence of culture and 

 civilization on the form of the human skull." The Abbe Frere, whose 

 collection of crania, belonging to the different centuries of our epoch, 

 is now placed in the Anthropological Museum of the Jardin des 

 Plantes in Paris, came to the conclusion that in the most ancient 

 crania the occipital was the most, and the frontal region the least, 

 developed; and that the increase in the elevation of the latter 

 marked the transition from barbarous to civilized man. 



NETV" THEORY RESPECTING THE QUEEN" BEE. 



Professor Leitch, an eminent European naturalist, has announced 

 a new theory on the queen bee, a puzzle which has exercised the 

 wits of naturalists and philosophers for many ages. How is a queen 

 bee produced from an egg which, under ordinary circumstances, 

 would produce a sterile worker ? It is commonly supposed that this 

 change is effected by the supply of a peculiar food (a " royal jelly," it 

 has been termed) to the larvae. Professor Leitch considers that the 

 change is effected by an increase of the temperature of the cell con- 

 taining the larvae intended for the production of a queen bee, and 

 that the object of the isolated position of the royal cell is to admit of 

 its being surrounded by a cluster of bees, who, by their rapidly-in- 

 creased respiration, produce the warmth necessary to accomplish the 

 growth of the queen. 



RESEARCHES UPON SPONTANEOUS GENERATION. 



The theory of spontaneous generation, advocated by M. Pouchet, of 

 France, and others (see Annual of Scientific Discovery, 18GO, pp. 

 391-401), has been opposed by most scientific authorities, on the suppo- 

 sition, mainly, that the minute organisms obtained by apparent spon- 

 taneous development were really derived from microscopic germs, 

 floating in the air, so small that they are introduced into the experi- 

 mental apparatus, despite all precautions taken to exclude them. 

 To definitely prove the existence of these germs, M. Pouchet has sub- 

 mitted atmospheric air, under a great variety of conditions, to micro- 

 scopic examination. He has not found, however, either germs or 

 spores of infusoria in the dust suspended in the air, but he has found 

 a great number of grains of starch. The air of great cities, and other 

 inhabited places, contains many of these starch grains, which, accord- 

 ing to him, one might take to be eggs of infusoria, or germs of muce- 

 dines (fungi). Yet M. Pasteur has proved that there must be some- 

 thing in the air besides these starch grains, for, by causing a quantity 

 of air to pass through a tube containing calcined asbestos, into liquids 

 which previously had been exposed to air which had been calcined, 

 and which consequently contained no trace of vegetation, he was 

 able to develop mould, or vegetation. When calcined asbestos, uu- 

 exposed to air, was alone introduced, no vegetation appeared. 



The apparatus used by M. Pasteur is remarkable for its simplicity 

 and precision, and its results, says M. Xickles, prove the impossibility 

 on the part of nature to continue her creative work in connection 



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