ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 311 



of resemblance which at first sight suggest a very distant Chelonian rela- 

 tionship for birds, but which are in reality only ancestral traits, which 

 are also present in embryonic stages of other Sauropsidan groups. The 

 Rhyncocephalia have preserved two features more archaic than are found 

 in any other Sauropsidan group— the continuity of the ceratohyal and 

 the condition of the branchio-hyoid muscle — but in the upgrowth of 

 the external pterygoid muscle and in the condition of the lingual muscles 

 they are less primitive than the Chelonia. Like the Chelonia and 

 Crocodilia they have preserved a fixed pterygoid bone. These are but a 

 few of the many points of an instructive and important memoir. 



Herpetology of Japan.* — Leonhard Stejneger gives a valuable 

 systematic account of the amphibians and reptiles of Japan and adjacent 

 territory, with analytical keys, notes on variation and distribution, and 

 abundant illustrations. 



Peculiarities of Vision in the Chamgeleon.t — E. P. Fortin refers 

 to the acuteness of the chamseleon's vision for near objects. The pre- 

 cision with which it picks up a very small insect at a distance of 15 cm. 

 is remarkable. This acuteness of vision is mainly due to peculiarities 

 in the fovea, which has a remarkable resemblance to that of man. The 

 visual field of the chania3leon is small compared with man's, but the eyes 

 are raised up, have highly developed muscles and great freedom of move- 

 ment. This makes up for the small visual field. From an opthalmo- 

 logical point of view there is much interest in the way the chameleon 

 can alter the shape of its pupil. The independence of movement 

 possessed by each of the eyes is seen also, according to Huot, in sea- 

 horses and pipe-fishes. 



Dinosaurs of Madagascar.^ — Armand Thevenin finds that most of 

 the Dinosaur bones found in Madagascar are of Jurassic or Cretaceous 

 age. _ All the Jurassic bones belong to Bothriospondylus madagascariensis, 

 a Dinosaur 3*5 m. high and 15 m. long. It resembles Morosaurus, a 

 North American form, and Cetiosaurus oxoniensis, and appears to have 

 lived about the same time as these two. 



Phagocytic Action of Kidney-cells in Frog.§— W. M. Smallwood 

 gives an account of a case of Ram pipiens, in which one of the fatty 

 bodies was found in a haemorrhagic condition. Examination of sections 

 revealed the fact that within the fatty body the blood-cells were under- 

 going degeneration, and that this was even more the case in the kidney. 

 It was rare to find in the kidney any red cells with a nucleus, and the 

 cells of the tubules as well as the tubules themselves were filled with 

 disintegrating blood-cells in all stages of degeneration. The tubule-cells 

 were evidently behaving in a phagocytic manner. It was found on 

 examination that the ilium had been broken, and it seems likely that 

 this breakage was the cause of the haemorrhage. 



Secretion of Thumb-swelling in Rana.||— A. Nussbaum finds that 

 by stimulating the Ramus cutaneus antebrachii et manus lateralis of the 



* Bull. U.S. Nat. Mus., No. 58 (1907) pp. i.-577 (35 pis. and 409 l/gs.). 

 t C.R. Soc. Biol. Paris, hdv. (1908) pp. 316-7. 

 % Cornptes Rendus, cxliv. (1907) pp. 1302-4. 

 § Anat. Anzeig., xxxii. (1908) pp. 201-5 (8 figs.). 

 || Op. cit., xxx. (1907) pp. 578-9 (2 fig*.) 



