348 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



turn, the whole of the long and slender body will roll over as rigidly 

 as if it were a stick. When we call to mind the anatomical structure 

 of the skull, the singular density and structure of the bones of the cra- 

 nium strike us as a special provision against fracture and injury to the 

 head. When we contemplate the remarkable manner in which all the 

 bones of the skull overlap one another, we cannot but discern a spe- 

 cial adaptation in the structure of serpents to their commonly prone 

 position, and a provision for the dangers to which they were subject 

 from falling bodies, and the tread of heavy beasts. But the whole or- 

 ganization of the serpent is replete with many ether such beautiful in- 

 stances of foresight and design. What, however, more particularly 

 concerns us in the relation of the serpent to our history is the great and 

 significant fact revealed by palaeontology, viz. that all these peculiar- 

 ities and complexities of organization, in designed subserviency to a 

 prone posture and a gliding progress upon the belly, were given by a 

 beneficent Creator to the serpents of that early tertiary period of our 

 planet's history, when, in the slow and progressive preparation of the 

 earth, the species which are now our contemporaries were just begin- 

 ning to dawn ; these, moreover, being species of the lowest classes of 

 animals, called into existence long before any of the actual kinds of 

 mammalia trod the earth, and long before the creation of man. Jame- 

 son's Journal, Oct. 



CHOLERA IN ANIMALS. 



EVIDENCE was produced to the French Academy in July, showing 

 that, during the prevalence of the cholera in France, horses were ob- 

 served to be affected with the disease in a like manner with men, and 

 that often, in the case of other epidemics, a common liability of men 

 and horses had been noticed. 



CHANGES OF INTEGUMENTS BY ANIMALS. 



SIR J. G. DALYELL presented to the British Association, at Edin- 

 burgh, the results obtained by him from observations upon the Crustacea. 

 He described minutely the changes undergone by crabs during the pro- 

 cess of moulting, and in several instances he counted the number of 

 days from one moult to another. These varied from GO to 194 days. 

 In all cases he found that no separation of wounded, mutilated, or de- 

 stroyed parts took place till after the moult following the injury. In 

 one case of the moult of a crab, only the two claws of the dermal skel- 

 eton were developed, whilst the eight legs were entirely suppressed, 

 but appeared at the next moult. 



Dr. T. Williams in a paper on Crustacea remarks that the process 

 of shedding the exuviae seems to be in a great measure under the 

 control of the animal, as when watched it frequently suspended this op- 

 eration, or when excited hastened it. The process seems to be at- 

 tended with excitement of the nervous system, as at this period the an- 

 imal is more pugnacious than at any other. London Athcnaum, Au- 

 gust. 



