78 Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology. 



Davenport, C. B. The CoUembola of Cold Spring Beach, with Special Refer- 

 ence to the Movements of the Poduridae. Co/J Spring Harbor Monographs, 

 II. 32 pp., I pi., 1903. 



This is a description of the form, systematic relationships, habitat 

 and modes of behavior of the simple insect CoUembola. Apart from 

 the new results of observation, which are interesting even to non-tech- 

 nical readers, the paper is valuable for its suggestions of methods and 

 interests in the study of animals. 



The spirit and purpose of the writer in his research can best be 

 understood with the aid of the following paragraph from the mono- 

 graph : "By this analysis I wish to enforce the idea that the move- 

 ments of the podurids are not to be referred to so many 'vohtional' 

 acts ; nor that, as instincts, are we to think of the tendency to particu- 

 lar kinds of behavior as having been inherited. But rather, the animal 

 being provided with a sensitiveness of a certain sort to oxygen, to 

 water, to currents of air or other movements, to contact, to gravity, 

 and to light, it will behave on the beach as we see it behave there. 

 Under another set of environmental conditions it will behave very dif- 

 ferently. The movents of the podurids ott the beach are the result 

 equally of the specific, inherited capacity of response on the one hand 

 and the particular stimuli afforded by the conditions of the beach." 



And again, in a brief but effective summary the author thus states 

 the chief matters of observation : "The podurids of the beach live 

 between tide-marks, go into the sand at high tide and rise to the sur- 

 face when the tide is out to take air. They run up surfaces in the 

 face of the wind and leap when they reach the top, being blown back 

 to the starting point. They are exceedingly sensitive to gravity, to 

 contact, to moisture, to currents of air and to light, and these elemen- 

 tary reactions are so combined as to bring about their normal move- 

 ments. They are provided with these instincts before they reach the 

 beach. Had they not had such instincts they could never have lived 

 on the beach. The instincts have selected the habitat." 



R. M. Y. 



Bigelow, Henry B. The Sense of Hearing in the Goldfish, Carassius aura- 

 tus L. American Naturalist, 1904, 37, 275-284. 



The experiments which form the basis of this paper were per- 

 formed to test the accuracy of Kreidl's conclusions, "that goldfishes 

 do not hear" — a conclusion reached after studying the sound reactions 

 in fishes from which the semicircular canals with the attached parts 

 had been removed. 



The author first studied the reactions of normal fishes to sound 

 vibrations and found that at least 78% of them gave definite well 



