i8g3. NOTES AND COMMENTS. XS 



the London Zoological Gardens. The fact that the journalist failed 

 to count the legs of the stick-insect correctly may be excusable, if he 

 were only a casual visitor ; but he might at least have mastered some 

 of the rudiments of zoology before he recorded his observations on the 

 Atlas moth. This, we are told, "is rather bird than insect, and the 

 wings have a depth and softness of plumage which seem to bring it 

 within the animal kingdom." If moths are not animals, and if birds 

 are animals that have evolved from insects, it is a misfortune the 

 Westminster Gazette does not expound to us its new philosophy. 



For further strange notions of zoology we may turn to the World 

 of May 31, where we read : — " I have entitled this story ' Ponsonby 

 and the Pantheress,' because Ponsonby's nocturnal visitor undoubtedly 

 belonged to the genus Carnaria, species F. pardus, the Pardalis of 

 the ancients." The confusion between order and genus is delightful, 

 while the meaning of the mystical " F." is apparently left to the 

 intelligent reader. 



Finally, in a notice of the skeletons of a man and horse recently 

 mounted side by side in the Natural History Museum, published 

 in the Graphic of June 10, we obtain the following information : — 

 " In the carpus (wrist-bones) of the horse a further reduction in the 

 number of bones as compared with man takes place, but it is especially 

 in the bones which constitute the hand in man (^metacarpus) in which 

 extraordinary modifications will be noticed. It will be apparent that 

 what is popularly known as the knee in the horse's foreleg is not the 

 knee, but the middle finger in the human hand, greatly developed 

 and strengthened to sustain the enormous weight of the horse's fore- 

 quarters. It has the same number of parts as the human middle 

 finger, and is terminated by the hoof, which corresponds to the nail 

 of that ringer." The uninstructed public are likely to be greatly 

 benefited by the information that the terms metacarpus and hand are 

 synonymous ; while when they read that the horse's knee is the 

 equivalent of the human third finger, even their proverbial faith in 

 the so-called popular scientist is likely to receive a rude shock. 



The Daily Chronicle of June 10 quotes some curious observations 

 recorded by Dr. Hovey on the effect of the pure air of the Mammoth 

 Cave of Kentucky on the senses of smell and hearing. After coming 

 out of the cave, the odours of the outside world, of the trees, grass, and 

 flowers, are so strangely intensified that the different trees can be 

 distinguished by scents inappreciable after breathing the ordinary air 

 for half-an-hour. This effect is, to many sensitive natures, so over- 

 powering that some of the visitors suffer from headache and nausea 

 by a too sudden change from the densely oxygenated atmosphere of 

 the cavern to the more impure one outside it. Hearing is also 

 stimulated. All of the cave animals — which are blind — are so keenly 

 endowed with this sense, that they dart away with rapidity should even 

 a grain of sand fall on the surface of the water. Yet, if perfect silence 



