( 8] ) 

 NEW BOOKS, WITH SHORT NOTICES. 



We greatly regret that owing to the pressure of articles on our 

 space we are compelled to allow to stand over notices of the following 

 works : — 



' A Eeport on the Microscopic Objects found in Cholera Investi- 

 gations.' By T. E. Lewis. Calcutta. 



' The Natural History of the British Diatomace^.' By A. Scott 

 Donkin, M.D. London : Van Voorst. 



And 'Microscopic Objects Figured and Described.' By J. H. 

 Martin. London : Van Voorst. 



PEOGKESS OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. 



The Abdominal Antennae of Insects are Sense Organs. — The ' Ame- 

 rican Naturalist' for December publishes a note on the above subject, 

 by Mr. A. S. Packard, jun., Avhich is of considerable interest. Eefer- 

 ring to Dr. Anton Dohrn's note on the subject in the ' Joiu-nal of the 

 Entomological Society of Stettin, 1869,' he points out that he gave 

 notice of the above structures as early as 1866, in the 'Proceedings 

 of the Boston Society of Natural History.' He says : — I have been 

 able to detect sense organs (probably endowed with the sense of 

 smell) in the short, stout-jointed, anal stylets of the Cockroach 

 {Periplaneta Americana), beautifully mounted by Mr. E. Bicknell. 

 I have recently, after reading Dr. Dohrn's note, observed the sense 

 organs and counted about ninety minute orifices on each stylet, which 

 are probably smelling or auditory organs, such as are described by 

 Hicks. Mr. Bicknell has counted more carefully than I did the exact 

 number of these pits, and made out ninety-five on one stylet and one 

 hundred and two on the other, adding, " there were none on the under- 

 side of their appendages that I could see." They were much larger 

 and much more numerous than similar orifices in the antennte of the 

 same insect, and were situated in single rows on the upj)er side of 

 each joint of the stylets. During the breeding season a peculiar odour 

 is perhaps emitted by the female, as in vertebrate animals, and it is 

 probable that these caudal appendages are endowed with the sense of 

 smell, rather than of hearing, that the male may smell its way to its 

 partner. This is an argument that the broadly pectinated antennae of 

 many moths are endowed rather with the sense of smelling than hear- 

 ing, to enable the males to smell out the females. I have observed the 

 same organs in the lamella of the antennae of the carrion beetles, which 

 undoubtedly depend more on the sense of smell than that of touch or 

 hearing to find stinking carcasses in which to place their eggs. 



Motion of Microscopic Granules. — In a late number of the ' Boston 

 Journal of Chemistry,' a writer who signs himself C. S. makes some 



