Miscellaneous. . 461 
can only be effected by the pressure to which the sac is subjected 
the moment the spine enters another body. 
Nobody will suppose that a complicated apparatus like the one 
described can be intended for conveying an innocuous substance, and 
therefore I have not hesitated to designate it as poisonous; and the 
greatest importance must be attached to it, inasmuch as it assists us 
in our inquiries into the nature of the functions of the muciferous 
system, the idea of its being a secretory organ having lately been 
superseded by the notion that it serves merely as a stratum for the 
distribution of peripheric nerves. Also the objection that the Sting- 
Rays and many Siluroid fishes are not poisonous, because they have 
no poison-organ, cannot be maintained, although the organs con- 
veying their poison are neither so well adapted for this purpose nor 
im such a perfect connexion with the secretory mucous system as in 
Thalassophryne. 
Finally, I have to add that neither Batrachus nor Porichthys has 
the spines perforated, and also that in Thalassophryne the poison- 
organ serves merely as a weapon of defence. All the Batrachoids 
with obtuse teeth on the palate and in the lower jaw feed on Mollusca 
and Crustaceans. 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
On the Naturalization of the White Hare in Faroe. 
To Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S. &e. 
My pear S1r,—The enclosed extract from a letter from my friend 
Mr. Miller, of Faroe (member of the Danish parliament), will ex- 
plain my object in sending you one of the specimens of Lepus varia- 
bclis? which he mentions. 
It seems a very successful case of naturalization: the species, of 
course, did not need acclimatizing. 
Yours very truly, 
Wallington, Newcastle-on-Tyne, W. C. TREVELYAN. 
Noy. 9, 1864. 
“In 1854 or 1855, two pairs of Hares were introduced into 
Stromée (Faroe) from Norway: they have increased so rapidly that 
there are thousands now in the island. One may shoot twenty in a 
day upon the hills, and it will be impossible to exterminate them. 
*<T have tried several times to import the Ptarmigan from Iceland, 
but hitherto without success. It appears that they cannot live more 
than two or three days when captured. Hggs have proved unsuc- 
cessful, too, the greater part having been sat upon.” 
Description of Lophogaster typicus. By M. Sars. 
At the present day zoologists devote their attention especially to 
those exceptional forms which serve to unite groups otherwise dis- 
tinct. These forms, which at one time were regarded as embarrassing 
