644 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



the so-called terminal threads — it is in the germinal epithelium which 

 Megusar has discovered in the pericardial region. 



Nerve-Endings in Striped Muscle of Insects.* — A. Aggazzotti has 

 demonstrated by a new method the existence of Doyere's " colline " with 

 its nuclei, and the relation of the nerve-fibrils to the isotropic lines of 

 the muscle-fibre. He finds, in regard to the fibrils emerging from the 

 nerve-fibre preterminally or from the plate, that the axis-cylinders of a 

 nerve-fibre have not their final termination in Doyere's " colline," but 

 in greater part are prolonged into numerous subdivisions ending in 

 little granular aggregations in the muscle-fibre, or resolving into fine 

 fibrillar endings which lose themselves in the substance of the muscle. 



■&* 



Influence of Temperature during Pupation.f — M. von Linden gives 

 a valuable critical exposition of the results of about forty papers on this 

 subject, and comes to the conclusion that the stable results sufficiently 

 prove that characters acquired by parents are transmissible to offspring. 

 In her opinion the Lamarckian interpretation is justified by the facts. 



Receptacula seminis in Culicidse.J — M. Neveu-Lemaire describes 

 the position, structure, and function of the receptacula seminis in 

 females of Anopheles coustani, Culex pipiens, Mansonia uniformis. In 

 copulation the sperms follow canals leading to the receptacula, where 

 they may remain vital for a more or less prolonged period, — a fact of 

 importance in the life-history of these insects. In Anopheles there is 

 but one receptacle and one canal. 



Testis of Tenebrio.§— K. Demokidoff found, at the blind end of the 

 testicular follicles of Tenebrio, a lens-like body of fibrous structure with 

 few nuclei, from which a strand passed into the follicle. He regards 

 this body as homologous with the terminal chamber of the ovarioles. 



Exuvial Glands. || — E. Verson refers to a recent paper by W. L. 

 Tower describing peculiar unicellular skin-glands in the larvae of 

 Leptinotarsa decemlineata, which secrete an exuvial fluid between the 

 old cuticle and the new. But in 1890 Verson described these exuvial 

 glands in the silkworm, where there are 15 pairs of them, secreting 

 a fluid between the hypodeimis and the cuticle. They become specially 

 active before a moult, and their secreted products doubtless help in the 

 removal of the old cuticle. But they are probably at the same time 

 excretory ; from the first to the fourth larval moult the secretion con- 

 tains oxalic acid salts, and subsequently uric acid. 



B. Myriopoda. 



Chilopoda in Bronn's ' Tierreich.' % — K. Verhoeff has begun what 

 will be a welcome contribution — a general account of the Chilopods. 



* Atti Accad. Sci. Torino, xxxvii. (1902) pp. 724-32 (1 pi.). 

 f Zool. Centralbl., ix. (1902) pp. 5S1-99. 

 t Bull. Soc. Zool. France, xxvii. (1902) pp. 172-5 (4 figs.). 

 § Zool. Anzeig., xxv. (1902) pp. 575-8 (3 figs.). 

 || Tom. cit.. pp. 652-4. 



•jf Bronn's Klassen und Ordnungen des Tierreicbs, Bd. 5, Abth. ii. Lief. 63-5, 

 42 pp. (6 pis.). 



