3GG ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



noticed by members of the Society, that the common housefly mar be fre- 

 quently seen hanging- dead from the celling, or attached to any surface on 

 which it may be lying, by a filamentous white substance; and that a while 

 powder, in greater or less quantity, is frequently seen dotted over the neigh- 

 boring surface. On examining this substance, he had found the insect to 

 have fallen a victim to a parasitic plant growing upon its surface. The white 

 powder proved to be the spores of the parasite. The whole interior of the fly 

 was found to be filled with a similar plant, and probably, from the different 

 way in which it develops itself, of a different species from that on the surface. 

 The internal parasite starts from a spore, and grows by elongation from one 

 or both sides of a sphere, this latter remaining in the middle or at one end. 

 Prof. Wyman exhibited magnified drawings of these parasites, as they ap- 

 pear under the microscope, in their various stages of development. 



On a Cause of Death in Elephants. At a recent meeting of the Boston 

 Society of Natural History, Prof. Wyman stated that he had been informed 

 by the Rev. Mr. Walker, of the Gaboon (West Africa) Mission, that elephants 

 in that vicinity were frequently swamped and smothered in mud-holes. He 

 regarded the fact as interesting, as showing at the present epoch causes of 

 death similar to those which probably existed in the time of the mastodon, 

 several of which were found together in New Jersey, and were supposed to 

 have been mired in the same locality. 



Hen's teeth have been numbered with the Greek kalends, but M. Geoffroy 

 Saint-Hilaire discovered in 1806 that fetal birds have rudiments of teeth, and 

 M. Blanchard, an assistant in the Museum of Natural History at Paris, now 

 announces that some birds have regular systems of teeth; the number of 

 teeth being unequal. 



Peculiarities of the Nervous System. According to Dr. Pfluger, the effect 

 of galvanizing a certain portion of the spinal cord, or the grand sympathetic 

 nerves, is to put a stop to the peristaltic movements of the small intestines. 

 On galvanizing one end of the grand sympathetic, peristaltic movement is 

 arrested throughout the entire length of the small intestines; and thus the 

 result is analogous to that stoppage of the action of the heart which takes 

 place upon galvanizing the pneumogastric. As in the case of the heart, also, 

 the arrestment of movement is rapidly brought about, rapidh r , but after a 

 perceptible interval, and the state of the muscle is one of relaxation. As 

 in the case of the heai't, also, the normal contractions begin again a short 

 time after the current has ceased to pass, if this current has not been passed 

 for too long a time. Dr. P. has also ascertained that the peristaltic movements 

 of the small intestines are not arrested by galvanizing the lesser sympathetic 

 nerves, and that the peristaltic movements of the large intestines are not 

 affected by galvanizing either the large or small sympathetics. 



Muscle-f or yetf ulness. Baron Heurteloup is the author of a new term, 

 myolethe, which may be translated muscle-forgetfulness. The muscular sys- 

 tem, being placed under the influence of the cerebro-spinal apparatus, in 

 normal conditions is managed by it. But any strong passion may so occupy 

 the brain that it forgets to continue its action upon the muscle. He saj T s 

 that when we open the mouth, while listening with great attention, it is not, 

 as some of the transcendental physiologists have declared, to open the eus- 

 tachian tube as a new conduit for the sound, but merely because the under 

 jaw falls; and the under jaw falls because the brain is so much preoccupied 

 that it forgets to hold it up. In the same way, he explains the powerless- 

 ness which seizes upon people at any terror, as on the brink of a precipice, 



