Miscellaneous. 141 



wolves, but many carry them curled over their backs. They a])pear 

 to consist of spaniel, terrier, Newfoundland and hound, in various 

 degrees of mixture, and are of all colours except pure white or 

 brindled. 



" A most tremendous epizootic has visited us, as you have perhaps 

 seen by the papers. From 10,000 to 1 2,000 head of bullocks have fallen 

 victims to it, and not three per cent, of those attacked have escaped, 

 nor have any preventive or curative measures whatever been found. 

 It seems to be a kind of catarrhal fever, and is generally fatal in three 

 or four days. Its ravages were fearfully rapid, herds of 200 or 300 

 being entirely finished in a single week. This calamity is the more 

 sorely felt from its occurring just at the beginning of crop, which is 

 remarkably heavy this year." 



ehrenberg's researches on infusoria. 



M. von Humboldt, in a letter to M. Valenciennes (Potsdam, De- 

 cember 16), gives an account of M. Ehrenberg's observations on the 

 Infusoria contained in the sea-water brought by Captain Ross from 

 various latitudes, and in the atmospheric dust sent to him by Mr. 

 Darwin (Annals, vol. xiv. p. 169). He adds, " M. Ehrenberg has 

 also found that the calcareous Bryozoa, of which |ths of the chalk is 

 composed, descend below the Jura formation, in the United States 

 as far as the mountain limestone ; but the species which occur in 

 these formations are different from those of the chalk. You also 

 know that notwithstanding the age of the chalk, half of the calca- 

 reous Bryozoa of this formation still live in the Baltic or in the 

 ocean. 



" The pumice-stone contained in the trass of the Rhine (of vol- 

 canic origin) is filled with siliceous Infusoria. It is to be supposed 

 that the little animals inhabited the pumice-stone fallen into some 

 fresh- water lake, and that these fragments were afterwards enveloped 

 in a muddy ejection. As pumice-stone is formed from obsidian, 

 and as volcanoes are a reaction of that which is in the innermost 

 part of our planet against its outer crust, we cannot admit the pre- 

 existence of the siliceous Polygastrica in craters. We must begin by 

 collecting facts, hypotheses will come afterwards." — Comptes Rendus, 

 Dec. 23, 1844. 



Occurrence of the Anoplotherium in the lowest layers of the tertiary 

 period of the Paris Basin. By M. E. Robert. 



Amongst the numerous bones of the Lophiodon, crocodile, tortoise, 

 &c. associated with the stems of Yuccacece, which I have collected at 

 different intervals in the central and upper layers of the calcaire gros- 

 sier of Nanterre and of Passy, I have hitherto only been able to sepa- 

 rate a jaw-bone of Anoplotherium leporinum ; the rarity of such a 

 fossil might lead us to suppose that the Lophiodons are almost the 

 only ones which are to be met with much lower than their congeners, 

 the Anoplotheriums and Palseotheriums, in the tertiary layers ; how- 

 ever, beneath the calcaire gro&sier and in the midst of the plastic 



