ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 711 



view that the portion of the membranous auditory labyrinth which is 

 described as the " lagena " or " lagena cochleee," is the same structure 

 throughout the vertebrate series. He points out what he regards as 

 Alexander's mistakes, and supports from his own studies the result of 

 Hasse, Retzius, and Kuhn that the lagena, which first appears in Fishes, 

 and persists in Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds, and Mammals (without a 

 sensory area in the last group) is the same structure throughout. 



Circulation in Labyrinth of Ear of Pig.* — G. E. Shanibaugh has 

 worked out the circulation in the labyrinth by using Eichler's method of 

 making celloidin casts of the labyrinth. A large series of embryos was 

 injected, and the simpler scheme for the distribution of the vessels found 

 in the younger embryos is utilised in interpreting the complicated 

 system of vessels found in the labyrinth at full term. There are ten 

 beautiful coloured plates. 



Genital Apparatus of Bats.f — M. Rauther finds that the epididymis, 

 of Chiroptera functions as a sperm-reservoir. Seminal vesicles occur 

 only in the Frugivora ; in the Microchiroptera their place is taken by 

 specialised glandular ampullorum of the vas deferens. Besides prostate 

 and Cowper's glands, there are special urethral glands ; and new compli- 

 cations in the penis and around the anus are described. 



Origin of the Thoroughbred Horse. J— Prof. Ridgeway suggests 

 that the Barbary horse, from which all the fine horses of the world have 

 sprung, was derived either from the zebra of North-East Africa, or, as. 

 is more likely, from some very closely allied species now extinct, which 

 like Prezevalsky's horse may have had castors on its hind legs like Eqims 

 caballus. 



Ancestral Canidse.§ — J. B. Hatcher describes a number of interest- 

 ing Oligocene Canidre recently discovered in Nebraska, and now preserved 

 in the Carnegie Museum. A full account is given of an almost complete 

 skeleton of Dapluenvs felinus Scott, and two new genera, Proamphkyon 

 and Protemnocyon, are described. It is held that Daphmnus has no 

 known descendant, that Proamphkyon is ancestral to Amphkyon ; and 

 that Protemnocyon is ancestral to Temnocyon. This last animal is of 

 particular interest as ancestral to Oanis, and the discovery of Protem- 

 nocyon carries the known ancestry of the clog one stage further back. 



Perforation of a Vein by an Artery in the Cat.|| — Arthur W. 

 Weysse describes an interesting case in which the right common iliac 

 vein shows a slit through which the superior gluteal artery passes. 

 Various similar abnormalities are on record, and can only be explained 

 by reference to the development. It seems probable that the internal 

 iliac artery grows out from the dorsal aorta before the common iliac vein 

 develops from the inferior vena cava. If this should prove to be so, we 

 can readily see that the primordium of the vein on coming in contact 

 with the artery, or in this case with its superior gluteal branch, might 



* Decennial Publications, Univ. Chicago, x. series 1, p. 20 (10 pis.), 

 t Anat. Anzeig., xxiii. (1903) pp. 508-24 (5 figs.). 

 % Proc. Cambridge Phil. Soc, xii. (1903) pp. 141-3. 



§ Mem. Carnegie Museum, i. pp. 65-108 (7 pis.). See Amer. Naturalist, xxxvii. 

 (1903) pp. 498-9. |i Amer. Naturalist, xxxvii. (1903) pp. 489-92 (I fig.). 



