378 Natural-Historical Collections. 



■ He recognizes three principal forms in the organs of motion. 



1. Muscular substance, indistinct and confounded with the cutaneous system ; 

 contractile. 



2. Longitudinal and circular muscular fibres, not in a solid piece ; articulated. 



3. Muscular fibres principally developed in a longitudinal direction, connected 

 with an internal or external skeleton, which is accompanied by a nervous sys- 

 tem — Erlaeuterungstafelnzur vergleichenden, Anat. A. G. Cams. 



On the Rvdiment of a Pelvis in the River Trout, (Salmo fario.) — In the 2d 

 Vol. p. 301, of the Zeitschrift fiir Physiologic, M. Otto describes a little bone, 

 which he calls the pelvis, in the river trout, one of the Salmonides. Its form is 

 that of the letter S ; it is eight lines in length. It is situated about three lines 

 from the inferior extremity of the fourteenth rib, which receives it in an articular 

 cavity, whose circumference is surrounded by a capsular ligament. Its articular 

 extremity has the form of a head ; the other end is pointed. From this point 

 point arises a tendinous filament which terminates in the ventral fin of the same 

 side. M. Otto, who considers this bone to be the rudiment of a pelvis, remarks, 

 that this separation of the bones of the pelvis from each other, and their articula- 

 tion with the ribs, in fishes, is explained by the presence of the latter bones dur- 

 ing the whole length of the vertebral column. 



Extracts from the analysis of the labours of the Academy of Sciences during 

 ^/te 2/ear 1826; 6y Baron CuviER." Paris, 1830. 



Zoology — Cuvier on the genus Araphiuma. — M. Cuvier has made some ob- 

 servations upon a genus of reptiles discovered by Garden, and named Amphiuma, 

 but for a long time neglected by zoologists. Its body is elongated, naked, sup- 

 ported on two pairs of very small feet, without nails ; its mouth is furnished with 

 teeth on the jaws and the palate ; it respires by lungs similar to those of the sa- 

 lamander ; no gills have yet been discovered at any period of its life, although 

 there is an opening on each side of the neck through which the water taken in by 

 the mouth may escape without entering the oesophagus. Besides the species for- 

 merly known, {A. means,) which has only two toes on each foot, and which has 

 recently been re-discovered by Messrs. Mitchill and Harlan, the author described a 

 new species, all of whose feet have three toes, and which he accordingly named 

 A. tridactylum. Both species are found in the marshes of Louisiana, where they 

 pass the winter buried in sand. It has been supposed that they might be the 

 adults of the sirens, other reptiles which have only fore-feet, and carry at the 

 sides of the neck tufted gills like the young salamander. But there are sirens 

 as large and larger than the amphiuma ; their feet have four toes ; their nostrils 

 and their teeth are diflferently disposed ; in short, it is now certain that they are 

 two distinct genera of animals. 



Geof. St. Hilaire on the ancient 'Crocodile of Egypt M. G. St. Hilaire has 



returned to a subject on which we reported in our analysis for the, last year; that 

 is to say, to the crocodiles which were reared by the priests of ancient Egypt, 

 and which, according to his opinion, form a particular species, to which he pro- 

 poses to apply the ancient name of suchus. He has returned to this labour on 

 the occasion of a present made by M. Calliaud to the Museum of Natural His- 

 tory, of a crocodile seven feet long, brought from the catacombs of Thebes, where 

 it had been carefully embalmed, and was found in the most perfect state of preser- 



• Though we have already presented our readers with M. Cuvier's analysis 

 for a later period than that with which we are now occupied, we consider the 

 present reports too valuable to be neglected, merely because they are late in 

 coming to our hands. Ed. 



