MISCELLANY. 



249 



The more intense the light, the more rapid 

 the disengagement of oxygen, and under the 

 influence of solar light a single leaf of ^Vw;?/(ar 

 has yielded as much as five cubic centime- 

 tres of oxygen per minute corresponding 

 to the fixation of one gramme of carbon in 

 ten hours. But, if we preserve all the other 

 conditions, abstracting only light, the bub- 

 bles of carbonic acid at the stomata disap- 

 pear, tlie cell fills with water, and ceases to 

 respire. Thus it is in the gaseous state that 

 carbonic acid is decomposed by the chloro- 

 phyll ; and, according to the author, chloro- 

 phyll possesses the property of directly 

 breaking up gaseous carbonic acid into its 

 elements, carbon and oxygen. 



From all this it follows that the passage 

 of carbonic acid through the stomata is a 

 purely physical phenomenon, not vital a 

 phenomenon of thermo-diffusion. 



Religion of the Cauarians. The super- 

 stitious practices in use among the primitive 

 Canarians was the subject of a paper read 

 by Seiior Chil y Naranjo. On Gran Canaria, 

 he says, the natives believed in an infinite 

 being, Alcorac or Alchoran. Him they wor- 

 shiped on the summits of mountains, as 

 also in little temples called almogaren. 

 Their priests were women, and were bound 

 by a vow of chastity. The sacred places 

 were also asylums for criminals. The Ca- 

 narians believed in the existence of an 

 evil spirit, Gabio. On TeneriS"e the Guan- 

 chos worshiped Achaman, and used to as- 

 semble in consecrated places for common 

 prayer. On Palma, the name given to the 

 Supreme Being was Abara. In all the islands 

 homage was rendered to the emblems of fe- 

 cundity and to the four elements. Their 

 sacrifices were such as would be esteemed 

 most precious by a pastoral people. They 

 attributed will to the sea; it was the sea 

 that gave them rain. In time of drought 

 they scourged the sea, and implored the 

 aid of Heaven with great ceremony. 



Microcephaly. Dr. Laennec exhibited a 

 microcephalous idiot, aged fourteen years, 

 of the male sex. This child is entirely uncon- 

 scious of his own actions, and his intellect- 

 ual operations are very few in number and 

 very.rudimentary. His language consists of 

 two syllables, oui and la, and he takes an 



evident pleasure in pronouncing them. He 

 takes no heed in what direction he walks ; 

 he would step off a precipice or into a fire. 

 Dr. Laennec called attention to the idiot's 

 hands ; the thumbs are atrophied and can- 

 not be opposed to the other fingers. The 

 palms of the hands have the transverse 

 creases, but not the diagonal the result 

 of the atrophy of the thumbs. Hence the 

 hand resembles that of the chimpanzee. 

 The dentition too is defective. Though 

 fourteen years of age, the child has only 

 twelve teeth. 



The Booted Eagle. M. Louis Bureau 

 stated the results of observations on va- 

 rieties of the booted eagle {Aquila pen- 

 nata\ the smallest European bird of the 

 eagle tribe. M. Bureau, having e^iamined 

 a number of broods of the booted eagle, 

 says that all the varieties of this species may 

 be reduced to two chief types, white and 

 black. In pairs, both of the sexes some- 

 times belong to one type, but they more usu- 

 ally are of different types. In fact M. Bu- 

 reau has found in the same forest, and at 

 but little distance from one another, two 

 pairs, in one of which the male was black, 

 and the female white, and, in the other, the 

 male white and the female black. As a 

 rule, the young birds are either all black or 

 all white. But in one nest, containing two 

 chicks, the one was white, the other black. 

 From this it follows that these variations oi 

 color are not correlated with the age of the 

 bird. 



St. Louis Academy of Science. At a re- 

 cent meeting of the St. Louis Academy of 

 Science, Prof. Riley read a paper on the 

 canker-worm, in which he says that two 

 sorts have hitherto been confounded under 

 this name, that are not only specifically, 

 but he thinks generically, distinct. They 

 present important structural diflerences in 

 the egg, the larva, the chrysalis, and the 

 moth states ; and also differ in the time of 

 their appearance : one species rising from 

 the ground mostly in early spring, the other 

 mostly in the fall. Both attack fruit and 

 shade trees, but, while the spring sort is 

 common and very injurious in the apple- 

 orchards of the Western States, the other 

 is rare there, and most common in the elms 

 of New England. To combat the former, 



