ZOOLOGY. 329 



tiful and instructive as articulated skeletons are for many purposes, 

 they are ill adapted for the examination of some oi' the most impor- 

 tant parts of the osseous system. The articular ends of the different 

 bones of wliich they are composed arc necessarily hidden, and a rigid 

 comparison of one bone with another is almost impossible. The 

 Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, have therefore 

 recently proposed, that a new osteological series shall be formed at 

 the llimterian Museum, designed to show the principal modification 

 in each individual element of the skeleton throughout the vertebrate 

 series, by placing the homologous bones of a number of different ani- 

 mals in juxtaposition. For convenience of comparison, the specimens 

 are all to be placed in corresponding positions, mounted on separate 

 stands, and to each will be attached a label bearing the name of 

 the bone and of the animal to which it belongs. It is believed that, 

 when this series is carried out on a sufficiently extensive scale, it will 

 afford facilities to the student of comparative osteology never before 

 equalled, and add greatly to the real value of the College Museum to 

 working men of science. 



Researches on the Nerve Structure. Every anatomist is now famil- 

 iar with the fact that the nervous matter the stuff which enables us 

 to think, and makes us conscious beings is composed of cells and 

 fibres. By some anatomists it has been contended that certain cells 

 and fibres are independent of each other ; but Dr. L. S. Beale, in a 

 paper recently published by the Iloyal Society, endeavors to prove, 

 that in all cases the fibres are in bodily connection with cells, and 

 that every nerve-cell has at least two fibres in connection with it. 

 From this the author concludes that the cells and fibres of every nerv- 

 ous apparatus form an uninterrupted circuit. 



How to detect a Real Ghost. Every one who has pressed his eyes 

 when shut, is more or less aware of the curious colored figures that 

 are thus brought before the consciousness ; and others are again 

 aware that when looking into space, curiously-shaped bodies float 

 before the eye, as though they occupied a place in space. These last, 

 when -sufficiently obvious to cause annoyance and th'e consultation of 

 a doctor, have been called muscce volitantes. These subjective phe- 

 nomena of the eye have assumed sometimes very definite forms, and 

 their study has enabled the physiologist to give satisfactory explana- 

 tions of the supposed appearance of ghosts to persons of diseased 

 visual apparatus. On these researches a ready means of detecting a 

 real ghost has' been discovered. All that is necessary for this purpose 

 is, when the ghost is seen, to press the side of the eye with the finger, 

 when, if it be not doubled, the presence of a real or objective gHost 

 may at once be doubted. 



The largest described Snake. Mr. Speke, in his work on the dis- 

 covery of the source of the Nile, thus describes the death of a snake 

 of the boa species, shot by his traveling companion, Capt. Grant: 



" I shuddered as I looked upon the effects of his tremendous, dying 

 strength. For yards around where he lay, grass and bushes and sap- 

 lings, and in fact everything except the more fully grown trees, were 

 cut clean off, as though they had been trimmed with an immense 

 scythe. This monster, when measured, was 51 feet 2 inches in ex- 

 treme length, while round the thickest portion of its body the girth 

 28* 



