HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



163 



stone, but they could never come to any satisfactory 

 conclusion. At the same meeting the president 

 spoke of the discovery by Professor Moseley of eyes 

 imbedded in the actual shell of a Chiton. Dr. 

 Carpenter had himself detected forty years ago 

 passages in the shells of Chitons, and it is now- 

 found that the larger perforations contain very 

 perfect simple eyes. This number of the journal 

 contains also Notes of Demonstrations by Dr. M. C. 

 Cooke, on Collecting, Examining, and Preserving 

 Fresh-water Algre, and by Dr. T. Spencer Cobbold, 

 F.R.S., on Lung Parasites. 



Cole's Microscopical Studies. — Three more 

 slides belonging to this series have been received and 

 not yet noticed, accompanied by the usual explanatory 

 text, viz. vertical section of thallus and apothecium 

 of Sodorina crocea ; transverse section of leech, 

 Hirudo riiedicinalis ; and section of lung, broncho- 

 pneumonia. 



Cholera Bacillus. — The short notice at p. 42 

 of Science-Gossip for this year demands attention. 

 Professor Ray Lankester maintains that the comma 

 bacillus is a spirillum. Assuming it to be the cause, 

 either directly or indirectly, of cholera, this view 

 would support those held by persons who regard 

 cholera as an acute fever. But is this spirillum view 

 maintainable ? Koch cultivated the comma bacillus 

 successfully. Its action in cultivation fluids is charac- 

 teristic and marked. The bacillus obtained in fluids 

 was always the comma bacillus. A fragment of a 

 spirillum containing spores would develop into perfect 

 spirilla ; but for disintegrated spirilla always to 

 develop into disintegrated spirilla, and for all these 

 disintegrated spirilla to resemble each other, and to 

 be identical with Koch's comma bacillus, does, I 

 think, throw doubt on the accuracy of Professor 

 Lankester's view. — W. J. Simmons, Calcutta, \6t/i 

 April, 1885. 



ZOOLOGY. 



Conchological Notes. — The following varieties 

 may be added to the British list : — 1. Helix Cantiana, 

 var. minor, Moq. Science-Gossip, 1885, p. 15, 

 var. 1 7. This might be mistaken by the inexperienced 

 for H. Cartusiana. 2. H. nemoralis, var. intcrrupta, 

 Moq. Bands interrupted. Chislehurst. This form 

 is better expressed by using a colon for an interrupted 

 band in the band-formula, thus: 1:345. 3- H. 

 nemoralis, var. studeria, Moq. Lilac, bandless. 

 Science-Gossip, 18S4, p. 236. 4. Cyclostoma ele- 

 gans, var. pallida, Moq. SCIENCE-GOSSIP, 1SS5, 

 p. 15, var. 14. 5. C. ele^aus, var. albescens, Moq. 

 "Whitish, without markings." The specimens I have 

 seen have not been absolutely without any traces of 

 bands or markings, but these have been so very indis- 



tinct, and the shell so white, that they cannot be 

 separated from albescens. " Zoologist," 18S5, p. 12. 

 Mr. Baker Hudson, in a recent number records 

 two varieties of Limax flavus, var. virescens and var. 

 colubrina as occurring near Middlesbro', but he 

 gives no description of them. Since they are not 

 described in the British works, it will be just as well 

 to give their descriptions now. Var. virescens, Moq. 

 is yellowish without any markings, while var. colubrina 

 is (Mr. Roebuck informs me) also yellow, but has 

 black markings on the mantle and on the body.* The 

 typical form of L. flavus is intermediate between ■ 

 these two, and Moquin-Tandon describes a var. 

 jlavescens, with very indistinct markings, which 

 bridges between the type and virescens. In the above 

 varieties the ground colour is yellow ; but this is not 

 always the case, for var. grisea has it grey, and in 

 France the varieties rufescens, reddish, with very 

 indistinct markings, and maculata, brown, with black 

 markings, have been found. — T. D. A. Cockerell, 

 Bedford Park, June 4. 



Arrival of Summer Birds. — The " Naturalist" 

 for June, contains a list of observations of the first 

 notices of twenty-eight summer visitant birds in the 

 North of England, from which it appears that the 

 swallow was noted at Nottingham on April 13th, 

 the nightingale at Bourne, S. Lincolnshire, on April 

 16th, and the cuckoo at Flamborough Head on 

 April 17th. 



Notes on Fish-Life. — In the June number of the 

 "Annals and Magazine of Natural History," Pro- 

 fessor MTntosh contributes from the St. Andrews 

 Marine Laboratory notes on the spawning of certain 

 marine fishes. These include the herring, the ova of 

 which he believes hardy enough to take but little 

 harm from being hauled on board by the trawl and 

 afterwards tossed into the sea ; viviparous blenny, of 

 which in one case at birth the young of a very large 

 adult (15 in.) measured nearly 5 inches (a very 

 similar case is mentioned in Yarrell) ; the cat-fish 

 and others. It is considered that pelagic or floating 

 eggs do not probably float by virtue of their oil- 

 globules, since some float without oil-globules, while 

 the abundance of oil in some other cases does not 

 cause the eggs to float. 



VORTICELL.E WITH TWO CONTRACTILE VESICLES. 



— In the "American Naturalist," Dr. A. C. Stokes 

 says that besides Vorticella lockzuoodii, which he 

 described last August, and which was the first 

 recorded instance of the presence of more than a 

 single pulsating vacuole in the Vorticella;, V. 

 monilata, Tatem., a species originally discovered in 

 English waters, and not uncommon in Europe and 

 America, also possesses two contractile vesicles. 



* The original description is "Animal flavum. Clypeo dorso- 

 que late ac irregulariter nigro-maculata : interstitiis flavis 

 maculas nigras aequantibus " (.Lessona and Pollonera)." 



