290 M. Nicolucci on the Anatomy of the Triton aquaticus. 



attain in captivity, one or two notes on the subject may here be in- 

 troduced. A fine male silver pheasant has been known to me to 

 live twenty-one or twenty- two years. Such gold pheasants as I 

 happened to learn the age of did not exceed half that period, though 

 which species can really be termed the longer lived, I am unable to 

 state. Such of the latter as came under my knowledge died almost 

 instantaneously, and when in the highest condition as to flesh and 

 plumage. Some years ago I saw at Glenarm Park a brood partly of 

 the common, and partly of the silver pheasant, which had thriven 

 very well together under the maternity of a " barn-door" hen — the 

 young of both species made their first appearance on the same day. 



It may here be mentioned that a pair of Pea -Fowl (Pavo cristatus) 

 which we had for some time, paid due respect to the hall-door, as 

 there they would eat only of bread or biscuit (moistened), although 

 at the back door, or in the yard, they would feed freely on potatoes. 



George Matthews, Esq. informs me that many years ago at 

 Springvale, county of Down, where nearly fifty Guinea-Fowl (Nu- 

 mida Meleagris) were kept, they flew about in company every even- 

 ing before roosting, and then settled for the night on the highest 

 trees about the place, which were ash. On a field of barley being 

 reaped there, a nest of these birds was discovered, containing be- 

 tween two and three hundred eggs. 



[To be continued.] 



XLV. — Anatomical Researches on the Nervous and emu- 

 lating Systems of the Triton aquaticus, or Aquatic Sala- 

 mander. By G. Nicolucci of Naples. Communicated 

 by Dr. Grant, Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Zoo- 

 logy in University College, London. 



The object of the brief investigations which we now detail is 

 merely a summary indication of the nervous and circulating 

 systems of the Aquatic Salamander, in preparing a complete 

 monograph of which we have been for some time engaged. 



1. Nervous System. 

 The encephalic mass of the Salamander occupies a great 

 part of the cavity of the cranium, and is formed by two oblong 

 hemispheres, having a median furrow on their upper and 

 under surface. The pineal gland, sufficiently developed, fills 

 the space that the hemispheres present on the under side by 

 diverging a little from each other, and closes the large cala- 

 mus scriptorius between the two enlargements of the medulla 

 oblongata, which, extended as far as the tail, presents a lon- 

 gitudinal median furrow. It is around the brain itself, and 

 most especially externally along the furrow that separates 

 the lobes of the medulla oblongata, that the chalky follicles of 



