BIOLOGY. 333 



ciation, Mr. Crisp read a paper on the relative weight, form, and 

 color of the e3'e in vertebrate animals, illustrated by the casts and 

 drawings of more than 1,000 e3'es of different species. The eyes 

 of 600 different species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and fishes, 

 filled with plaster-of-Paris and colored after nature, were exhibited 

 in evidence of this plan first mentioned by the author at Bath in 

 1864. The following were some of his conclusions : That birds 

 among terrestrial animals have the largest eyes proportionately, 

 but fishes have relatively the largest eyes of all animals ; that 

 among quadrupeds, the giraffe, horse, eland, elk, and bison have 

 the largest eyes; that, with the exception of fishes, brown, in all 

 divisions, is the prevailing color ; and that whales, among mam- 

 mals, have relatively very small eyes. 



Nationality in Voices. — Sir Duncan Gibb, the vice-president of 

 the Anthropological Society of London, recently prepared a paper 

 on the character of the voice in the nations of Asia and Africa 

 contrasted with that in the nations of Europe. Since then the 

 subject has attracted no little attention abroad. He has arrived 

 at the following deductions from his observations : The Chinese 

 and Japanese possess voices of low power, feeble compass, whi- 

 ning in tone and '* possessing a metallic twang." That of the Tar- 

 tars, Thibetians, and Mongols partakes slightly of the same twang. 

 In India and Burmah the voice is not powerful but shrill, soft, and 

 feminine, that of the inhabitants of the hills being more robust, 

 possessing more of the metallic twang and less of the whine than 

 that of the inhabitants of the plains. The larynx of the negro is 

 intermediate in size between that of the Chinese and Tartars. 

 The negro wants vocal power, possessing the elements of a roar- 

 ing, bellowing voic6. " The European nations possess strong, 

 powerful, sonorous, clear voices. Variations as to character and 

 tone might and did exist, but as a rule they all agreed in powerful 

 compass, range, clearness, and loudness of sound." He thinks 

 the Germans possess the most pow^erful voices in Europe, but in 

 their strength they must yield to the Tartars. 



The Esquimau Race. — According to Prof. Rolleston, it is difficult 

 to distinguish the male Esquimau from the female Esquimau by 

 their skulls, they are so much alike. The skulls indicate that the 

 Greenlanders were a carnivorous people; there are no sutures in 

 the skulls such as we find in higher races. In the Esquimaux 

 they are nearly obliterated, just as they are obliterated in the 

 Carnivora. It has been surmised that the Norsemen were the 

 progenitors of the Esquimau race, but if there is anything in 

 craniology they were not; nor does the shape of the skulls in- 

 dicate that there is any ethnological connection between the 

 Esquimau and the Red Indian. All the skulls are like one 

 another, which is to be accounted for by the uniformity of their 

 habits and conditions. 



Sterility among Skates. — In a letter published in the ♦' Proceed- 

 ings of the Essex Institute" for 1«67, Salem, Mass., Prof. Agassiz 

 states that he has recently ascertained the existence of sterile 

 males and females among the skates, the appearance of which is 

 so different from the normal specimens, that they have been fre- 



