ZOOLOGY. 723 



mere are 577. These numbers of course include duplications of species 

 which are common to two or more regions, chiefly the east coast and 

 Gulf of Mexico. Such duplicated species are about 170 in number, and 

 the aggregate with these subtracted amounts to about 1,460 species for 

 the whole of North America north of Mexico. In the number of east 

 coast species are, however, included a number of deep sea forms — about 

 forty — which do not properly belong to the true American fauna. These 

 figures have been communicated to the writer by Professor Jordan. 



Myzonts. 



Fertilization of the Lamprey's eggs. — M. L. Ferry has been led to believe 

 that the eggs of the Petromyzon marinus are fecundated by intromission 

 of sperm within the body of the female. A female lamprey, caught 

 early in June, was opened and the eggs taken from it and consigned to 

 a pan filled with water ; in about twenty days thereafter the eggs were 

 hatched. It is consequently thought that the females are fecundated 

 " while they and the males are adhering side by side to the same rock or 

 the same tree," or rather, probably, while in mutual embrace. 



Fishes. 



The functions of the pyloric cceca of fishes. — About the pyloric ex- 

 tremity of most fishes are certain diverticula or processes called the 

 pyloric cceca. The functions of these appendages have been investi- 

 gated by Dr. Blanchard, at Havre, in the case of ten species common 

 there — the shad, dory, scad, three gurnards, weever, hake, pout, and 

 whiting. It was found that in all instances the fluids secreted by the 

 cceca transform starch into glucose and albuminoids into peptones, but 

 do not act at all upon fats. It thus appears that the cceca are, to some 

 extent, representatives of a pancreas, as was early supposed, but only 

 partially. {Am. Nat., vol. xvn, p. 1302.) 



A neic order of fishes. — In the last mouth of 1882 a communication 

 was made by M. Leon Vaillant, the French ichthyologist, to the French 

 Academy of Sciences, in which he announced the discovery of a remark- 

 able type of fishes. The newly discovered form was obtained by the 

 French exploring vessel Travailleur off the coast of Morocco, at a depth 

 of 2,300 meters, or about 1,100 fathoms. It was some eighteen inches 

 long, and was especially notable for an excessively deep-cleft mouth 

 and correspondingly elongated jaws, which were at least several times 

 longer than the cranium. The new type was named Eurypharynx pele- 

 canoides. 



In August, 1883, several specimens of a kindred fish were obtained 

 by the United States Fish Commission steamer Albatross in deep water 

 off the coast of the United States, at depths varying between 380 and 

 1,467 fathoms. The jaws in this form were excessively elongated and 

 about six or seven times larger than the cranium. The species was 



