i8 93 . NOTES AND COMMENTS. 253 



(Zool., vol. xxiv., pp. 364-368, pi. xxvii.) contains some of his first 

 results. Mr. Moore has examined sections of Spirostomum and 

 F J aravuccium, and detailed descriptions, with beautiful figures, are 

 given. It would be premature at present to speculate as to the 

 meaning of the various structures, but it is evident that a new line 

 of research of great biological importance has been inaugurated. 



Those who are interested in the progress of the American 

 theories of mechanical evolution, ought not to overlook Professor 

 John A. Ryder's papers on " Energy as a Factor in Organic 

 Evolution," and " The Mechanical Genesis of the Form of the Fowl's 

 Egg," in the last number of the Proc. Amev. Phil. Soc. (vol. xxxi., 

 pp. 192-209). The arguments are ingenious and interesting, but we are 

 by no means convinced that the phenomena of life are such simple, 

 mechanical matters as Professor Ryder and his school suppose. 



M. Marey is still making progress with his study of the locomo- 

 tion of animals, by means of photograph}'. He has just published 

 figures of the gait of a snake, a gecko, and a scorpion [Comptes Rendtts, 

 vol. cxvii., pp. 355-359). 



A red deer (Cervus elaphus) with ten points on each antler has 

 lately been shot by Lord Burton in the forest of Glen Quoich, 

 Scotland. This is apparently the most complex form of antler hitherto 

 obtained in a Scottish specimen. 



It has long been known that the Tapirs — which are curiously 

 restricted at the present day to the Malay Archipelago and to Central 

 and South America — once had a very wide range throughout Asia, 

 Europe, and North America. There are traces of these marsh 

 quadrupeds in the Miocene and Pliocene rocks of Germany, France, 

 and England, and in the Pleistocene of China ; and quite a long 

 series of ancestral types has been discovered in North America. A 

 brief synopsis of all the known extinct forms has just been contributed 

 to the Geological Magazine (Dec. 3, vol. x., pp. 391-396) by Mr. Charles 

 Earle, and all who are acquainted with the tooth-structure and foot- 

 structure of Ungulates will read this account with great interest. So 

 far as known, the Tapirs occur a little earlier in Europe than in 

 America, and the teeth of all the extinct forms are somewhat simpler 

 than those of the species now living. 



When will Palaeontologists cease to elaborate theories and try 

 to amend long-respected "laws" on the evidence of mere scraps of 

 animals ? In a letter we publish elsewhere, Professor Hutton says 

 that the supposed evidence of the occurrence of the New Zealand 

 Moa in Queensland proves to be worthless — that it consists solely 



