FRESH FACTS. 



Microscopic Vivisection. Eugene Penard. " Sur les mouvements 

 autonomes des pseudopod.es," Arch. Sci. Phi/s. Nat. vii. 1899, pp. 434-445. 

 Mr. Penard has made numerous experiments with excised pseudopodia of 

 Difflugia lebes, which go to show that detached (non-nucleated) fragments behave 

 for a time as if they formed a complete organism. During their ephemeral 

 life they exhibit movements ; they are attracted by plasmas identical with their 

 own, and repelled by those which are unlike. 



A Wonderful House. H. Lohmann. " Das Gehause der Appendicularien 

 nach seiner Bildungsweise, seinem Bau und seiner Function," Zool. Anzeig. xxii. 

 1899, pp. 206-214, 4 figs. Dr. Lohmann studied at Messina the history of the 

 house of Oikopleura. The foundations are laid in 3 to 4 hours by the energetic 

 secretory activity of special oikoplast cells which form the component membranes 

 and fibrils. The house once begun is quickly finished, and has not been more 

 than a few hours in use before another begins to be built. But what is its use 1 

 The answer to this is perhaps the chief interest of this paper, for Lohmann 

 finds that it is justified in three ways. It forms an effective trap for food 

 particles ; it serves as a locomotor organ ; and it protects the inmate, who can 

 " blitzschnell " leave its encasement and escape with its life. 



Notochordal Canal in Man. A. C F. Eternod. "II y a un canal 

 notochordal clans Fembryon humain," Anat. Anzeig. xvi. 1899, pp. 131-143, 

 17 figs. The author has satisfied himself that there is in the very early human 

 embryo a distinct trace of a notochordal or archenteric canal which does not 

 differ in its essential features from that known in other mammals. 



Hibernating Swallows Once More. Alan Owston. "Swallows in 

 Mid-Winter," Annot. Zool. Japon. iii. 1899, p. 29. In a letter to our Japanese 

 contemporary, Mr. Alan Owston of Yokohama notes that on the 16th of 

 December 1896 he saw a number of swifts (Cypselus pacificus) flying about, and 

 that on the 1st of January 1898 he observed a couple of swallows {Hirundo 

 rustica gutturalis) catching flies on the beach. " Is it possible that some swifts 

 and swallows remain here throughout the whole winter, and if so do they 

 hybernate in caves like bats 1 " 



When a Snail Leaves its Shell. R. Welch. " Helices abandoning their 

 Shells," Journ. of Conchology, ix. July 1899, p. 217. We had thought that a 

 snail would leave its shell when the Greek Kalends came round, or a canny 

 Scot committed himself to a definite opinion on the weather, but we were wrong- 

 again. For there have been repeated stories of late in circulation about snails 

 wandering about in indecent nudity. The fama arose in regard to Limnaea 

 peregra, but it seems that the more sedate Helix piscina and Helix lactea have 

 gone in for similar frolics. They were well fed, Mr. Welch assures us, and not 

 handled in any way. This is a " curiosity " which some one will surely soon 

 convert into an interesting fact by telling us the reason why. Is it an atavism 

 before death — a return to ancestral nuditv 1 



