BIOLOGY. 323 



draw on a given sm'face, and finds that a beetle, Donacia nym- 

 phea, can pull 42.7 of its own weight. If a horse were equally 

 powerful, he would be able to draw 25,000 kilogrammes, or more 

 than double that number of pounds. 



On the Pterodadyle. — Mr. Seely adduces reasons for supposing 

 that the " Pterodactyie was a quadruped, and, when not flying, 

 carried its wings folded up in front of the fore limbs." From a 

 consideration of various points of structure, he concludes that the 

 " Pterodactyle's place in nature appears to be side by side with 

 the birds, between the reptiles and the mammals." 



New Mammal from China. — A French missionaiy, M. Armand 

 David, having sent home skins, etc., of the mi-lou, or ssen-pou- 

 siang, a large sort of stag, M. Alph. Milne-Edwards describes it 

 to the French Academy. The second Chinese name signifies " the 

 four discordant charactei's," the creature resembling a stag in its 

 horns, a cow in its feet, a camel in its neck, and an ass in its tail. 

 The horns, which belong only to the male, are large and branched, 

 but differ in some important particulars from the antlers of the 

 stag. The fur is rough and gray, with a black line on the back 

 and breast. The tail, instead of being short and thick, as is com- 

 mon with stags, is very long, and terminates in a tuft of long hair. 

 The mi-lou is as big as a large stag. Herds of them live in an im- 

 perial pai-k some distance from Pekin ; but the Chinese do not 

 know where they came from, or on what date they first arrived. 

 M. David thinks that Hue and Gabet spoke of the mi-lou in de- 

 scribing " reindeer," which they saw beyond Koukou-noor, about 

 lat. 36°. M. Milne-Edwards proposes to call the animal Elaphu- 

 rus Davidionis. — Intellectual Observer, July, 1866. 



Historic Age of the Dog. — M. Quatrefages states that in China 

 the exact period of the introduction of the dog is known, viz., in 

 the year B. C. 1122, about 3,000 years ago, or, about the period 

 of the siege of Troy. The dog appears, from what he asserts, to 

 be a domesticated jackal, and tiie jackal a savage dog. 



Chinese Beauty's Foot. — On examination, no toe was visible but 

 the big toe ; the others had been doubled under the sole, with 

 which they had become incorporated, and could not be distin- 

 guished from it except by the white seams and scars that deeply 

 furrowed the skin. The instep was marked by the vestiges of 

 large ulcers, consequent on the violence used to bend it into a 

 lump, and in form, as well as in color, was like a dumpling; the 

 limb from the foot to the knee was withered and flaccid as that of 

 one long paralyzed. — Travels in Mantchou Tartary. 



Voices of Fish. — M. Dufosse summed up a memoir on this sub- 

 ject before the French Academy with these genei-al conclusions : 

 " Anatomj', physiology, and the iiistory of the manners of animals 

 all agree in demonstrating that nature has been far from refusing 

 to all fishes the gift of expressing by sounds their instinctive sen- 

 sations ; but she has not accorded to these beings that unity of 

 mechanism in the formation of sonorous vibi-ations which she has 

 done in the first three classes of tlie vertebrates. There are in 

 the organization of fishes at least three essentially distinct mech- 

 anisms, of gradually diminishing pliysiological value. Many 



