G. GENERAL NATURAL HISTORY AND ZOOLOGY. 291 



fine plates, the drawings for which were made and colored, 

 mostly from life, by native students at the School of Art in 

 Calcutta, and they illustrate twenty-nine species. Special 

 attention has been paid by the author to the effects of the 

 venom, its remedy, and statistics respecting the number of 

 deaths resulting therefrom. It appears that in a single year 

 the number of deaths knoicn to have resulted from snake- 

 bite in the Bengal presidency alone amounted to the frightful 

 number of 6219, of which 959 were ascribed to the cobra. 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF PERCOID FISHES. 



In a paper by Vaillant, lately presented to the Academy 

 of Sciences in Paris, upon the geographical distribution of 

 some of the fresh-water percoid fishes, it is remarked that spe- 

 cies of this group are found all over the world, with the ex- 

 ception of the southern hemisphere, in which only a single 

 genus occurs. In Oceania there is but one form, ^Jiiojylosis, 

 on the shores of New Holland. He finds that the fresh-water 

 kinds, either in identical species or in forms closely related 

 to each other, have a much greater area of geographical dis- 

 tribution than the ordinary marine forms, and that such gen- 

 era as Ferca, Zabrax, Siniperca^ and Percalabrax are extra 

 tropical, and peculiar to the northern hemisphere ; but that 

 they are replaced between the tropics by Lates and Centro- 

 2^0111118. He finds a very close relationship between certain 

 European and American species, such as the common yellow 

 perch, the Lucioperca^ or the wall-eyed perch, XJraic, etc. 



POSITION OF LIMULUS IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM!. 



In an elaborate paper by Mr. Alph. Milne-Edwards upon 

 the anatomy of the king-crab {Limidus)^ of which the Amer- 

 ican Limidus polyphemus is the well-known representative 

 on our Atlantic coast, the conclusion is announced that these 

 animals are neither arachnida, modified by an aquatic life, nor 

 crustaceans, as has been generally supposed by zoologists, 

 but that they constitute a special type united to the arach- 

 nida by various analogies, though having certain features of 

 the organization of crustaceans. The group was formerly 

 abundant; at present the Limidus is the only living repre- 

 sentative. The recent and fossil species Ijave been united by 

 Mr. Milne-Edwards into a class, under the name o^ Merosto- 

 mata.Q D, December 9, 18'72, 1611. 



