1869.] Zoology. 321 



in order to avoid the winter weather) gave evidence as to two 

 cases which had come under his observation, in which sword-fishes 

 had struck vessels ; but in both cases the sword had been broken 

 off in the animal's subsequent struggles, thus filling up the hole. 

 The fish's snout in the first case penetrated into fourteen inches of 

 wood ; in the second case it had passed right through the timbers 

 and into a berth. In the case under discussion it appeared that 

 only three inches of wood had been penetrated; and Professor 

 Owen thought that a sword-fish might get its nose out of that 

 depth again. The force exhibited in the penetrating power of 

 these blows from the sword-fish is something enormous. The 

 XipMas is a true fish, its sword being formed of two facial bones 

 — the vomer and praemaxillary. It must not be confused with 

 the saw-fish, nor with the cetacean narwhal, whose sword is one 

 of a pair of teeth, which grows to the enormous length of ten 

 feet in some of the males, whilst the other remains small, as do 

 both in the females. The sword-fish and the narwhal are about 

 the same size — a little over twelve feet in length. 



The Auditory Organ of Molluscs. — Professor Lacaze-Duthiers 

 has made a very important communication to the French Academy 

 on this subject. Loydig, Huxley and Claparede, and M. Duthiers 

 himself, too, had thought that the otolithic sac of Molluscs, with 

 the exception of Eolidoe and Heteropoda, derived its nerve from 

 the pedal ganghon, since it lies quite on that ganglion ; but M. 

 Duthiers has now found that this is a mistake, and that the nerve 

 really comes down to the otolithic saccule from the supra-oeso- 

 phageal ganglion or brain-ganghon, as in Heteropoda, so that all 

 the organs of sense are j^resided over by this cerebral ganglion. 



The Annelids of the Bay of Naples. — Professor Claparede, of 

 Geneva, having had to pass a winter at Naples for the sake of his 

 health, has produced one of the most beautiful volumes that we have 

 ever seen, on the annelids of its bay. The volume is a quarto one, 

 with thirty-two plates containing innumerable drawings of micro- 

 scopic structure and detail, and charming coloured figures of the 

 annelids themselves. There is no exaggeration of colour, and the 

 Hues are the work of a true artist. Nothing could be more beau- 

 tiful than the figure of Phyllochetopterus. The work is a most 

 important one, moreover, for many new species are described, and — 

 what is of more importance —much that is new in the structure of 

 known forms is told and figured. 



A New Type of Polyzoa. — Professor AUman, of Edinburgh, 

 obtained from Mr. Gwyn Jefireys a most interesting and quite new 

 form of Polyzoa, which was dredged up off' the Shetlands. In the 

 ' Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science ' the Professor has 

 described and figured the new molluscoid under the name of Rhabdo- 

 pleura. It is so called from the presence of a remarkable chitinous rod 



