78 Miscellaneous. 



mory of the late Dr. Lloyd, Provost of Trinity College, to state that 

 it was his anxious wish to found a school of Natural History in the 

 University over which he presided, and that it was in immediate 

 course of being carried into effect in the year 1837 when interrupted 

 by his sudden death. 



HABITS OF THE MANTIS. 



In a letter from Herr Chr. Zimmerman in Rockingham in North 

 Carolina to Dr. Erichson, editor of the ' Archivfur Naturgeschichte/ 

 in which he quaintly retorts upon the latter for incredulity respecting 

 some former statements of his relative to the food of Mantis Caro- 

 lina consisting of amphibia, this fact is fully confirmed by the fol- 

 lowing additional observations : — Your report having come to hand 

 last September, just the time when the Mantides begin to make their 

 appearance, I had abundant opportunities of repeating my experi- 

 ments. Instead of the little striped lizard (Scincus 5-lineatus) as 

 heretofore, I made use of a species of newt (Salamandra cirrhigera, 

 Holbri) equally active and more abundant. Its fate was as I anti- 

 cipated. One newt after the other was seized, and to a greater or 

 less extent devoured. In vain did they endeavour, by rapid contor- 

 tions of the body and blows with the tail, to elude the grasp of the 

 mantis, which, with the head depressed and the hinder part of the 

 body tilted upwards, kept a firm hold of its victim, and ate until it 

 could eat no more. I send you the very specimen of mantis with 

 which these experiments were performed. Whenever a mantis seizes 

 another insect or small animal, the anterior fang-like extremities are 

 brought down to below the level of the head, so as to avoid having 

 to sustain the weight of the prey. — A. T. 



ETHNOLOGY. 



A tract has been published by M. d'Omalius d'Halloy " Sur les 

 Races Humaines," of which the following is the account given by the 

 author when presenting it to the Academy of Sciences. He states 

 that he had endeavoured to show, that in classing the modifications 

 of the human race, the natural characters, such as form and colour, 

 ought to take the precedence of language, historical filiation, and 

 other social considerations. He then points out that the application 

 of this principle leads him to remove the Hindoos and Abyssinians 

 from the whites and to add them to the brown race, which thus be- 

 comes composed of three geographical groups, separated respectively 

 by the Sea of Oman and the Gulf of Bengal. He concludes with 

 remarking upon the constantly progressive development of the 

 whiter varieties of the human race, whilst the coloured races, and 

 also the least fair of the white race, are stationary or retrograde ; 

 whence it may be said, that notwithstanding the stability which now 

 characterizes organic nature, there is yet in progress a phenomenon 

 of a like kind with that which is revealed to us in the palseontolo- 

 gical study of the terrestrial globe, which exhibits the successive 

 appearance of species more and more perfect ; fish having preceded 



