200 Scientific hitelligence, — Physiology, 



of its horn. Mr Hodgson, in pursuing his inquiries, has had 

 reason to remark the amiableness of the young animaPs disposi- 

 tion, both towards his keeper and strangers ; an instance, he ob- 

 serves, of the power possessed by Asiatics, through their tran- 

 quil famiharity of taming the most formidable quadrupeds. That 

 the rhinoceros will submit to the domesticating influence of man, 

 we have seen more than one instance ; nor would the tractability 

 of this herbivorous animal seem in any way a matter of surprise, 

 when we know that the fiercest of the carnivorous tribe have be- 

 come the attached companions of their master, if the rhinoceros 

 had not been held up by writers of every age and country as a 

 standard of brutality and untameable fury. India exhibits nu- 

 merous proofs of false conclusions by natural historians regard- 

 ing the habits and temper of animals, and affords a field of in- 

 teresting inquiry respecting their instinct, as contradistinguished 

 to what might be called their educatable faculties. This sub- 

 ject has hitherto, we believe, only been treated by the naturalists 

 of Europe, who have relied, in many cases, upon very vague or 

 insufficient narratives, but never by any person residing in the 

 native country of the animals whose history has been recorded. 



30. Cuvier's Great Worli on the Natural History of Fishes . — 

 This very important work, in which Cuvier and Valenciennes 

 have been so long engaged, and which will contain descriptions 

 of five thousand species of living and fossil fishes, is now in the 

 press, and will soon appear. 



31. J Nezo Species of Pentacrinus discovered in the West 

 Indies. — We are informed that a naturalist of St Vincent's, we 

 presume Mr Lansdown Guilding, has found in the Caribean 

 Sea, a new species of this tribe. This fact is the more interest- 

 ing, when viewed in connection with the discovery of a British 

 species, described by Mr Thomson in his memoir, noticed in 

 the present number of this Journal. 



PHYSIOLOGY. 



32. Distribution of Nerves in Muscular Fibres. — In a me- 

 moir on muscular action, MM. Dumas and Prevost have com- 

 municated some very interesting microscopical observations on 

 the distribution of the nerves in the muscular fibres, and on the 

 forms which these latter assume during their contractions. They 



