152 Miscellaneous. 



staltic contractions of which we have distinctly observed. In short, 

 although we have observed them for several months (that is to say, 

 from May to November), no change in their condition was ascer- 

 tained ; and they disappeared with the leaves which bear them, 

 without its being possible to ascertain what becomes of them sub- 

 sequently. 



The question naturally arose, What was the signification of these 

 abnormal individuals of the Aphis of the maple, and what part did 

 they fulfil in the reproductive functions of the species to which they 

 belong ? They are evidently not males, since their generative appa- 

 ratus retains the same rudimentary form at whatever epoch we 

 examine them. Moreover in no known species of Aphis are the 

 males produced at the same time as the viviparous individuals, which 

 are not the true females of the species. There is therefore no other 

 alternative but to regard them as a modification of the specific type 

 constantly reproduced with the same characters by the successive 

 normal generations. Our abnormal Aphides are indeed deprived of 

 the faculty of reproduction, either by sexual generation or in any 

 other manner ; but after the observations of M, H.Landois upon the 

 law of sexual development in insects, we know that in them the sexes 

 depend simply upon the conditions of alimentation of the larva. 

 Because, in the present state of things, these conditions have not 

 yet occurred for one of the two sorts of larvae of Aphis aceris, there 

 is no reason for our concluding that they may not some day be 

 realized ; and by thus acquiring, with the attributes of the sexes, 

 the faculty of propagating directly in an indefinite manner, these 

 abnormal individuals will become in their turn the origin of a new 

 species produced by deviation from an anterior specific type. — 

 Comptes Rendus, June 17, 1867, pp. 1259-1262. 



Cervus megaceros previously known in the Fens. 



To ike Editors of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 



Gentlemen, — If Mr. Norman Moore will turn to pp. 466-467 

 of Prof. Owen's ' British Fossil Mammals,' he will find it recorded 

 more than twenty years ago that " remains of the Megaceros found 

 eight and a half feet below the surface of the peat-bog at Hilgay, 

 Norfolk, are preserved in the collection of Mr. Whickham Flower, 

 F.G.S." Various specimens have come under my notice in the last 

 five or six years ; and these facts I have recorded, by enumerating 

 the species as one of the ])eat-fauna mammals, in the ' Geological 

 Magazine' for November 1866, and in the 'Quarterly Journal of the 

 Geological Society ' for the same date. 



I remain yours, &c. 



H. Seeley. 



