1866.| Zoology and Animal Physiology. 301 
females. The females, therefore, only constitute 28 per cent. of the 
victims. In England, M. Boudin adds, the proportion of females 
is even lower, being only 22 per cent. Referrg to the circum- 
stance that when lightning has struck a group composed of indi- 
viduals of both sexes, the men have been killed and the women 
escaped, M. Boudin is at a loss how to account for this comparative 
immunity of the female sex. The ‘Chemical News,’ commenting 
on the above paper, suggests that a ready explanation is to be found 
in the fact that men are, on the average, taller than women. 
X. ZOOLOGY AND ANIMAL PHYSIOLOGY. 
One of the most important facts which we have to chronicle this 
quarter in relation to zoological science is the formation of the new 
chair of Comparative Anatomy and Zoology in the University of 
Cambridge. The election of the two professors came off about a 
month since. Dr. G@ M. Humphry, F.R.S., of Downing College, 
was unopposed for the older professorship of human anatomy. For 
the other chair there were two candidates, Dr. Drosier of Caius 
College, and Mr. Alfred Newton of Magdalene, whose valuable 
ornithological researches are sufficiently well known. The latter 
gentleman was elected by a majority of 110 to 82. 
The new museum of comparative anatomy at Cambridge— 
which has been erected within the last year by the University— 
contains a very valuable and select collection, and is now almost 
completely arranged, offermg a further guarantee of the interest 
taken at Cambridge in the progress of biological science. 
The publication of Professor Owen’s work on the anatomy of 
the vertebrates is an event of some interest; two volumes have 
appeared, and the third has yet to come. 
M. Edmond Alix describes the organs of parturition in Bennett’s 
Kangaroo (Hilmaturus Bennettii). He seems to have satisfactorily 
determined that the view put forward by Sir Everard Home (per- 
haps derived from John Hunter) with regard to the communication 
between the cavity of the median vagina and that of the ureto- 
genital vestibule is correct, and that both Cuvier and Owen have 
been wrong in denying it. M. Alix claims for M. Jules Verreaux 
the discovery of the mode of parturition in the kangaroo.* Mr. 
Verreaux kept a large number of these animals in captivity, and by 
attentive care day and night he was able to ascertain the following 
facts. When the female feels that she is about to expel an embryo, 
she applies her two anterior paws to each side of the vulva, so as to 
open its lips; then she introduces her muzzle, and receives the 
* See also our last Chronicle for an account of the parturition of the opossum, 
which appears tu difier very materially. 
