ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 453 



Ridgeway would call them, Libyan features in the Irish horse are the 

 result of introductions by mankind of eastern or Spanish blood, or 

 whether those features were inherited from a wild ancestor. Pie believes 

 that the latter was the case, but further inquiry is necessary. 



Osmotic Pressures of Blood and Eggs of Birds.* — W. R. Gelston 

 Atkins points out that this subject has received very little attention, 

 though it may have much interest in connection with development. 

 He has studied the blood of fowl, turkey, duck, goose and rhea, and 

 the eggs of fowl aud duck. The method adopted was the determination 

 of the freezing points. He finds that the blood and eggs of birds are 

 not isotonic, the osmotic pressure of the egg being considerably the 

 lower. The blood of each kind of bird has an almost constant freezing- 

 point, the fluctuations being of the same order as those met with in 

 Mammals. The difference in the osmotic pressures of the blood and 

 egg is rather more than accounted for by the diminution in the in- 

 organic salts of the egg as compared with the blood. 



Three New Bird Records for Britain. f—R. M. Barrington records 

 Pallas's grasshopper warbler (Locustella certhiola Pall.) picked up at 

 Rockabill Light-house. The only other European record is Gatke's in 

 Heligoland. He also records, as new for Ireland, the little bunting 

 (Emberiza pusilla Pall.) and the reed-warbler (Acroeephalus streperus 

 Vieillot). 



Behaviour of Newly-hatched Loggerhead Turtles.! — Davenport 

 Hooker finds that newly-hatched loggerhead turtles move away from 

 transparent and opaque red, orange, and green, and from green bay- 

 cedar bushes, and move towards transparent or opaque blue. This has 

 probably to do with their reaching the sea. After entering the water 

 they swim out to sea, apparently attracted by the darker blue of the 

 deeper water. In a large sand-pit from which bushes and ocean were 

 invisible, they showed no tendency to move in a definite direction. In 

 a restricted environment, the young turtle is not only " chromotropic " 

 but positively phototropic. Their behaviour is not affected by the 

 sound or odour of the sea. 



Brain of Proteus anguineus.§ — 0. Hirsch-Tabor finds that the 

 brain of Proteus remains at a somewhat low level. The bulbus oculi is 

 markedly atrophied at the stage of the secondary optic cup. There is a 

 distinct "intrabulbar optic nerve, but only a short epibulbar stump of an 

 extrabulbar nerve. There is no optic chiasma, or trace of intra-cerebral 

 optic fibres, or layers in the grey matter of the tectum opticum. The 

 mid-brain roof is narrow. 



Differentiated eye-muscles were not distinguishable, nor any corre- 

 sponding nerves ; Kohl saw six eye-muscles, which probably shows the 

 variability of these degenerate structures. The sensory bulbus nerves 



* Sci. Proc. R, Dublin Soc, xii. (1909) pp. 123-30. 



+ Tom. cit , pp. 18-20. 



% Ann. Rep. Carnegie Inst., Washington, vii. (1908) p. 124. 



§ Arch. Mikr. Anat., lxxii. (1908) pp. 719-30 (3 figs.). 



