ZOOLOGY. 339 



escaped his careful examination, if it had existed. The optic lobes 

 existed ; according- to the general rules of physiology, they should not 

 exist, as they bear a strict relation to the sense of sight, which re- 

 ceives its nerves from them ; both morbid and comparative anatomy 

 show that disease of the eye impairing 1 or destroying vision, or a 

 naturally deficient sight, is accompanied with a corresponding diminu- 

 tion or atrophy of the optic lobes. Here the optic lobes were not so 

 large as in the allied fishes, but yet they were of good size, and near- 

 ly as large as the cerebral lobes. This fact would lead us to inquire 

 if these lobes are the seat of any other function than that of sight. In 

 man, after long blindness, the lobe opposite the affected eye is found 

 to be atrophied. Prof. Wyman had recently had in his possession a 

 frog that had lost the sight of the right eye by the evacuation of its 

 humors. The eye was cicatrized, and he had no means of knowing 

 the age of the injury. On dissection, the left optic lobe was found 

 one third less in size than the right. In the craw-fish of the Mam- 

 moth Cave, there is the eye- pedicle, but there are no facets ; only 

 simple integuments covered with hairs. The crickets, with their long- 

 antennae, had as well developed eyes as crickets living in the light. 

 Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History. 



RELATIONS OF EMBRYONIC DEVELOPMENT TO PERMANENT 



FORMS. 



AT a meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Prof. 

 Agassiz said, that he had formerly shown that, in studying the rela- 

 tions of different stages in the embryonic development to permanent 

 forms of insects, a better idea of their natural classification could be 

 obtained than in any other way, and he now proposed to show that 

 this view might be still further carried out, even to the fixing of the 

 relative positions of the different families. It had been a question 

 whether the diurnal or nocturnal butterflies should stand first in the 

 scale. He proceeded to show that the different positions and rela- 

 tions of the wing in the progress of development of Papilio correspond 

 to the permanent conditions of these appendages in the various fami- 

 lies of Lepidoptera, and thence deduced their true position ; placing, 

 1st, Papilionidae ; 2d, Hesperidae ; 3d, Sphingidae ; 4th, Bombycidae ; 

 5th, Noctridae ; 6th, Pyralidae ; 7th, Tineida?. In a similar way he 

 indicated the true position of the different types of Articulata, showing 

 a close analogy between their permanent forms and the transient con- 

 ditions of an insect, beginning with the caterpillar, which corresponds 

 in type with the Annellidse. By the same test he showed the true 

 position of Millipedes and Spiders ; the former being insects with a 

 worm-like form, the latter, with the anterior parts united into a cepha- 

 lothorax like the Crustacea, corresponding to the pupa condition in type. 



WEIGHT AND VALUE OF EGGS. 



IT is most extraordinary, that the varieties in the weight and value 

 of eggs, as an article of merchandise, should have been so universally 



