22 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



respond very slowly to stimulation. Their luminosity increases very 

 gradually to a maximum and dies slowly down again, fluctuations taking 

 place from time to time. The organs of the two forms studied belong 

 to the first group, and are most nearly related to the suborbital organs 

 of the Stoinatidse. But they differ from these in various particulars, 

 especially in that they are complexes made up of a number of open 

 glands. They are relatively, and perhaps absolutely, the largest phos- 

 phorescent organs occurring in fishes, and this is the more remarkable 

 since their possessors do not live in the deep sea. Physiologically they 

 are especially important as the only representatives of the first group 

 which have been carefully observed. The phosphorescence is extra- 

 cellular but intra-glandular, and is constant. A luminosity of the same 

 character is unknown anywhere else in the animal kingdom. In a note 

 appended to his paper the author discusses Brauers work on the phos- 

 phorescent organs of the fishes collected by the German Deep Sea 

 Expedition. 



c General. 



Diurnal Variations in Temperatures of Camels.* — J. Burton 

 Cleland tested a number of camels recently imported from India to 

 Western Australia. The results, though comparatively few, seem to 

 indicate that the camel resembles, to some extent, cold-blooded animals 

 such as reptiles, inasmuch as there is a wide range of temperature, 

 varying with external conditions, the oscillations sometimes being as 

 much as nearly 8° F. 



The sub-normal temperature would appear to be due to the coolness 

 of the mornings, the lack of active exercise, and the completion of 

 rumination some time previously. The higher temperature, found in 

 the evening, after hot days, is perhaps to be attributed to the small 

 amount of visible perspiration, which seems restricted to an area on 

 the back of the neck. This is an adaptation to conserve the animal's 

 water-supply in arid regions. 



Immunity of Lerot to Viper's Poison.t — G. Billard injected large 

 doses of viper's poison into the lerot {Eliomys nitela), a kind of 

 dormouse, and found that there were no ill effects. He observed that 

 these little animals are very pugnacious, and fight fiercely with vipers. 

 On one occasion a large viper bit a lerot badly in the eye, but there was 

 no sign of poisoning. It is usually said that the only Mammals immune 

 to snake-poison are the hedgehog, the pig, and the mongoose. 



Colours of Equidse4 — R- I- Pocock discusses the coloration of 

 horses, zebras, and tapirs. He thinks that Johnston's view of the 

 coloration of Equidae is correct, namely, that they are descended from 

 dark-coloured animals patterned with white spots, running into longi- 

 tudinal lines originally, and at a later stage in evolution becoming 

 arranged in transverse bars over the neck and body. It is this view of 

 the question which gives special interest to the coloration of dapple-grey 

 horses ; for if the white spots of these horses represent phylogenetically 



* Proc. Linn. Soc, N.S.Wales, xxxiv. (1909) pp. 268-71. 

 t C.R. Soc. Biol. Paris, lxvii. (1909) pp. 90-1. 

 J Ann. Nat. Hist., iv. (1909) pp. 404-15. 



