192 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



Beaked Whales.* — Frederick W. True gives an account of the 

 beaked whales of the family Ziphiidae in the collection of the United 

 States National Museum, with remarks on some specimens in other 

 American museums. With the exception of the bottle-nosed whales of 

 the genus Hyp&roodon, the Ziphiidae are among the rarest of Cetaceans. 

 There are three genera, Mesoplodon, Ziphius, and Berardius. Of the 

 last-named, only about fourteen specimens have been collected thus far. 

 Attention is called to Stejneger's important discovery that the three 

 genera are represented at Bering Island in the North Pacific. 



Musculature of Pectoral Girdle and Flipper in Cetacea.f — S. 

 Sterling finds that the resemblance of Odontoceti and Mvstacoceti as 

 regards fore-limb is rather that of convergence than of close relation- 

 ship. That of Odontoceti is further from the typical Mammalian fore- 

 limb than that of Mystacoceti, and the Odontoceti must have sprung 

 from a Mammalian stock more ancient than the ancestors of the 

 Mystacoceti. The order Cetacea must]have had a diphyletic origin, as 

 Kukenthal has suggested. 



Homology of Mammalian Lachrymal.:}: — E. Gaupp brings forward 

 much evidence in support of the view that the lachrymal bone in the 

 Mammalian skull is homologous with the pre-frontal of Sauropsida, and 

 not with the somewhat inconstant lachrymal of Sauropsida. 



Right- and Left-handedness.§ — Karl von Bardeleben calls attention 

 to the need of more data in regard to this much-discussed subject. We 

 cannot even state percentages of left-handedness for different peoples. 

 A study in the German army in 1910 showed 10,322 left-handed men, 

 about 3 • 88 p.c. The author points out that there, should be enquiry 

 into the degree of the left-handedness, as tested by power of writing, 

 throwing, knitting, and the like, by finer tests as to sensitiveness, and 

 by precise measurement. The gibbon and orang are right-handed, chim- 

 panzee and gorilla are left-handed, but we do not yet know how the 

 predominant right-handedness of mankind has arisen. 



Birds and Deinosaurs. — J. Versluys shows that the free movement 

 of the skull which is so characteristic of Birds, was also possessed by 

 Deinosaurs. It seems to him likely that Birds and Deinosaurs were 

 both derived from Diaptosaurians, which were able to run about on 

 their hind legs. The author argues in favour of this view with great 

 learning and ingenuity. 



Ileal Caecum of Birds.lf — A. Lelievre and E. Retterer have studied 

 in the duck the structure and development of the third caecum or ileal 

 appendix, whieh is present in many birds. It is, like the appendix 

 vermiformis in man, a portion of the alimentary tract, and has to begin 

 with the same structure. But as development goes on, the epithelium 



* U.S. Nat. Mus. Bull, lxxiii. (1910) pp. 1-89 (42 pis.), 

 t Jen. Zeitschr. Naturw., xlvi. (1910) pp. 667-80 (1 pi. and 4 figs.). 

 X Anat. Anzeig., xxxvi. (1910) pp. 529-55 (14 figs.). 



§ Verh. Anat. Ges., 1910 ; Anat. Anzeig. Erganz., xxxvii. (1910) pp. 10-13. 

 || Zool. Jahrb., xxx. (1910) pp. 175-200 (1 pi. and 25 figs.). 

 i C.R. Soc. Biol. Paris, lxix. (1910) pp. 334-7. 



