446 Miscellaneous. 



Since this, whilst carrying on in my garden that seemingly un- 

 avoidable slaughter of slugs, I have on two occasions extracted the 

 Mermis from the bodies of the common white slug (Limax agrestis). 

 The last instance was in May 1865, when, while killing a small slug 

 about three-quarters of an inch long, with a piece of stick, I saw that 

 1 had another worm, and extracted it entire, without injury ; it was 

 more than three inches in length, cream-coloured, with a faint dark 

 line, firm and rigid as usual : it surprised me that it could have been 

 carried about in so small a compass. This individual I kept alive 

 some time in a small phial, with a drop of water to keep it moist. 



It is easy to speculate on the object the hair-worm has to attain in 

 climbing during or immediately after a shower ; possibly it may be 

 the deposition of ova. 



Hurstpierpoint, Nov. 18fi7. 



Experiments on the Axolotl. By M. Auguste Dum^ril. 



Since I had the honour of informing the Academy that the Mexi- 

 can Urodelous Batrachia with external branchiae, called axolotls, 

 which had never previously been seen living in Europe, had reproduced 

 in the Menagerie of Reptiles, and that many of those born there had 

 undergone metamorphoses *, numerous births have taken place 

 there, and other transformations like the former have occurred. 

 Thus, up to the present time, we have seen sixteen of these animals 

 become covered with yellowish-white spots contrasting with the 

 darker general tint, then lose their branchial apparatus completely, 

 as well as the membranous crest of the back and tail. At the same 

 time the internal organs have undergone changes comparal)le with 

 those which are observed in the Urodelous Batrachia in passing 

 from the larval to the adult state. Of the four arches supporting 

 the branchiae which float outside, three have disappeared ; the outer- 

 most one alone remains, and constitutes the posterior joint of the 

 thyroidean horn. The anterior surface of the bodies of the vertebrae 

 has become less concave. As in all the other Salamandriform Ba- 

 trachia, a modification has taken place in the arrangement of the 

 dental apparatus of the vault of the palate, the vomerine teeth having 

 changed their place. They were united on each side behind the 

 intermaxillary bone into a small band slightly oblique from in front 

 and within, backwards and outwards ; but after the metamorphosis 

 they form, beyond the inner orifices of the nasal fossae, a nearly 

 transverse row — an arrangement which, with the absence of the pos- 

 terior palatine teeth, occurs only in the North American tritons called 

 Amblystomi, of which the axolotls consequently appear to be the 

 tadpoles. In the lower jaw, to the right and left of the symphysis 

 behind the marginal row, there was a group of small teeth which is 

 no longer to be seen. 



Such is a very summary general account of the characteristic facts 

 of a metamorphosis never previously observed, and which possesses 



* Comptes Rendus, tome Ix. p. 765, and Ixi. p. "75 : see Annals, ser. 3. 

 voL xvii. p. 156. 



