362 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



or from strong emotions of the central nervous system, from sudden ter- 

 ror or grief, the same coloring fat may be called back to furnish the suf- 

 fering organism. 



This process, effected by different physiological conditions of the organ- 

 ism, seems to be a reasonable explanation of the fact, that many northern 

 mammalia and birds become white in winter, while they are dark-colored in 

 summer; that the hair of men or mammalia, or the feathers of birds, may 

 become suddenly gray or white from sudden terror, hard labor, or debility, 

 while they are dark-colored in mature life or in the more vigorous seasons 

 of the organism. And if we add the hypothesis, that in the oily fluid there 

 may take place still other chemical processes effected by different conditions 

 of the nervous system, such as oxidation, or deoxidation, we may explain 

 in this way still other changes of color; for instance, from yellow, through 

 red to black; which, from observations made during the last winter, seems 

 to be really in certain turtles (Emyspicla, and marginata). 



THE LAW OF TYPES IN THE ANIMAL CREATION. 



Dr. George Ogilvie, in a recent (English) work, "The Master-Builder's 

 Plan," thus sketches the law of typical formation in Zoology. 



"In each division of animals, we can point out a very definite type, ac- 

 cording to which the several species are constructed a type, the essentials 

 of which are never violated, even when it seems in a manner incompatible 

 with the habits of particular animals the necessary conformity being 

 obtained in such cases, not by a departure from the type, but by a compara- 

 tively slight modification of some parts of the organization, and that in a 

 way quite consistent with its general character. Obviously the organic 

 creation is constructed upon a great systematic plan : it is not to be com- 

 pared to an overgrown village, in which the houses commodious and well 

 constructed as they may be, each in itself are scattered about without any 

 order, every man having built as was good in his own eyes; it answers 

 rather to our notion of a well-planned town, with the houses in regular 

 streets, in each of which a certain uniformity prevails, while the streets 

 themselves are arranged in that particular order which to the founder of the 

 city seemed the most appropriate." 



And in this view it will not be claiming too high a position for the conclu- 

 sions arrived at, to contend, with the author, that, 



" Late as may be its discovery, the law of typical conformation will not 

 yield in importance, as a fundamental principle in Zoology, to that of the 

 circulation of the blood in Physiology, or that of the revolution of the 

 planets round the sun in astronomical science, for it gives the character of 

 an inductive science to one which was previously only descriptive; and it 

 admits of being applied to the elucidation of phenomena before beyond 

 all others incapable of explanation: those of the production of mon- 

 strous forms." 



ON THE FORMATION OF THE CELLS OF BEES. 



The following is an abstract of a paper on the above subject, presented to 

 the British Association, 1858, by Mr. W. B. Tegetmcir: 



Having recently been engaged in making a series of experiments with a 

 view to determine the typical form of the cells of bees, and having arrived 



