.3,,. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 333. 



A CURIOUS instance of the decalcification of bones by the action 

 of water from a peat bog is recorded by Messrs. E. R. Waite and 

 P. F. Kendall in the June number of The Naturalist. The case is 

 that of a Fallow Deer discovered last summer in the peat of Goole 

 Moor, Yorkshire. The bones are quite pliable and elastic, and of a. 

 dark brown colour ; and the teeth also are so light that they float in 

 water. Remains of the hair were also found with the skeleton. 



Dr. KiJKENTHAL has been led to undertake the researches just 

 referred to by his detailed investigation of the Embryology and 

 Comparative Anatomy of the Cetacea, on which he will shortly issue 

 an elaborate work. He considers that the Whalebone Whales have 

 been evolved from a group of land-quadrupeds quite distinct from 

 that which gave rise to the Toothed Whales, Porpoises, &c.. 

 Moreover, he is of opinion that the great number of the teeth in these 

 aquatic mammals is due to the splitting of the fewer many-cusped 

 teeth that existed in their ancestors. 



The pineal eye of vertebrates still continues to attract attention,. 

 and Dr. Carrington Purvis attempts to criticise some current views 

 in a brief paper on the pineal body of the Porbeagle Shark {Lamna 

 cornuhica) in the newly-issued part of the Pvoceedings of the Royal 

 Physical Society of Edinbitrgh (Session 1890-91, pp. 62-67, pi. ii.). 

 Dr. Purvis suspects, from his observations, that the conclusions of 

 previous observers as to the pineal eye being comparable with a 

 highly-developed invertebrate eye, will prove unfounded. He is 

 inclined to think that it may be " a vertebrate type of eye, arrested, 

 however, at a very early stage (primary optic vesicle stage) in its 

 development." 



The last number (30) of the Bulletin of the Botanical Department of 

 Jamaica (April, 1892) contains the economics of the moth Diatreea 

 sacchamlis, Fabr., the sugar-cane borer, by T. D. A. Cockerell. 

 After a brief historical note, which shows that the larva was pro- 

 bably that one referred to by Sir Hans Sloane as early as 1725, and 

 that the imago was identified by West wood in 1S56 as the Phaleena 

 saccharalis ol Fabricius, 1793, the author notes the life-history of the 

 insect from the egg to the moth, which has been figured by Com- 

 stock and Howard. The eggs are laid on the leaves of the young 

 cane near the axils, and the larva penetrates the stalk at or near the 

 joint, tunneUing through the soft pith usually in an upward direction.. 

 The whole hfe of the insect, from egg to moth, may be taken at six 

 weeks. Little is known of the natural enemies of the sugar-cane 

 borer, but ants have been observed to keep it in check. Chanliognathus 

 pennsylvanicus, in its larval stage, has been seen feeding on larvas of 



