clxxxviii GENERAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



been studied by Mr. F. "W. Putnam. It takes almost no food, 

 though the eyed Species (Cambarns Bartoni) readily eats 

 any food offered to it. On being startled, the blind species 

 darts backward, extending its antenna?, and stands as if on 

 the alert for danger. Milk-white specimens, on changing 

 their skins, were afterward of the same color. It did not 

 change its color after shedding its shell twice, or after living 

 in full light of day, and often for hours in the sunshine, over 

 five months. On April 20 the same specimen cast its shell 

 for the second time, within three months of the time it last 

 moulted. During this period it did not feed more than three 

 or four times, and then only ate sparingly. 



From observations made on the reproduction of lost parts 

 in the blind crawfish, it appears that the parts, such as the 

 legs and antennae, are not reproduced in perfection after one 

 moult, but that each time the shell is cast they are more 

 nearly perfect than before. In the instance observed it re- 

 quired three moultings before the great claw attained nearly 

 its full size, while an additional moult is necessary to perfect 

 the limb. The posterior legs, on the contrary, are perfected 

 in two moultings, and, in the case observed, in about five 

 months from the time they were lost. The antenna? are re- 

 produced more rapidly, and approach their full size in one 

 moulting. D urine: the five months the animal was in con- 

 finement it did not increase in size. Extremes of tempera- 

 ture did not affect the blind crawfish, as several specimens 

 were kept without harm for several days in a heated room, 

 and were exposed for weeks to such intense cold that the 

 water in the jars was frozen. 



A number of new North American sow-bugs, or Oniscida, 

 are described by Stuxberg in the Proceedings of the Royal 

 Swedish Academy. The same author describes in the "An- 

 nals and Magazine of Natural History" a number of new 

 forms of IMhobius (a small centipede) from California and 

 Mexico. 



The studies of the Russian zoologist Metschnikoff on the 

 embryology of the thousand-legs (or chilognathic Myriapods) 

 have been supplemented by a beautiful memoir on the early 

 history of Geophilus, a long, slender form allied to the centi- 

 pedes (Chilopoda). In this form, as in other Myriapods, the 

 yolk undergoes total segmentation, and the primitive band 



