46 PROGRESS OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. ['T^nlL!'j]^nVi^io^^ 



Natural History Society that tlie Professor still holds to his views 

 on the above point. About a quarter of a centui-y has elapsed 

 since the lectui-er proved that certain mammalia or birds in the 

 Zoological Gardens could be distinguished merely by their blood- 

 corpuscles from every other animal in that great menagerie; and 

 that the form and size of the corpuscles is so characteristic that, 

 whenever an aberration in these jioints occurs in the red corpus- 

 cles of any species, that will most likely be an aberrant species — 

 Basaris, Cercoleptes, Hyrax, &c., e. g. Again, the very marked uni- 

 formity in the red corpuscles of birds corresponds to the comparative 

 uniformity of the general organization in the class ; and the greatest 

 differences of the red corpuscles will be found in those species of a 

 class or order having the greatest divergences in its general structure 

 or organization. Nay, even in mammalia that ai)pear to be closely 

 allied, should any marked difference exist between the red corpuscles 

 of any two or more species, it may be at once inferred that the one 

 in which the divergence is found will prove to be an aberrant member 

 in its general organization. The lecturer had long since given proofs 

 of these views; and, very recently, had discovered another most 

 interesting one, the details of which he has not yet published, but 

 would soon do so in a distinct memoir. Briefly, the point is as 

 follows : — An eminent anatomist, well acquainted with the lecturer's 

 discovery of the singular minuteness of the red corpuscles of the blood 

 of the Musk Deer (Tragulus), of which the different species have long 

 been known in this country under the generic name of " Moschus," 

 sent him some dried blood of another or true Musk Deer ; which, after 

 careful examination and measurements, Professor Gulliver declared 

 could not belong to any species closely allied to those three which he 

 had formerly examined, since the red corpuscles of this Moschus 

 moscJiiferus were so much larger that their average diameter was no 

 less than ^y^yth of an English inch. And then he was assured, by 

 the eminent professor and conservator of the museum at the College of 

 Surgeons, that this true Musk Deer (Moschus) would really prove to 

 belong to a different genus from that which included the old Musk 

 Deer (Tragidus), and, in short, that the difference between the 

 structure of the two species or genera was no less than the lecturer's 

 examination merely of the red corpuscles had led him to believe. 



TJie Structure of the Muscles in various Animals. — This has been 

 recently submitted to investigation by Herr Dr. Hensen, who has 

 published his results in the last number of the 'Arbeiten,' of the 

 Physiological Institute of Keil, and of which the 'Lancet' (Dec, 4) 

 gives an excellent summary. Dr. Hensen has made careful micro- 

 scopic investigations of the muscles in various mammals, Crustacea, 

 and insects, and advances the following theory of the structure of 

 striated muscle. Leaving out of consideration the sarcolemma, the 

 nuclei, and the investing mass of protoplasm around the nuclei, muscle,' 

 he believes, is composed of four distinct substances, so intimately 

 imited or blended with one another as to constitute a soft solid mass. 

 Three of these are arranged in a laminated manner, and form columelli ; 

 the fourth separates the columelli from one another. The columelli 



