ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 289 



is the exhausting of reserves, and it seems likely that the beating could 

 be sustained longer with a still more suitable — 'aseptic and nutritive- 

 fluid. 



Physiology of the Pancreas.* — H. C Chapman has made a number 

 of experiments leading to the following conclusions. Secretins from 

 the Echidna, Wallaby, Australian water-tortoise, and Ibis, are active 

 upon the dog in causing a flow of pancreatic juice. Secretin does not 

 appear to cause pancreatic secretion in the Echidna. The flow of 

 pancreatic juice produced by pilocarpine is inhibited by atropine, while 

 the flow produced by secretin is not so inhibited. Stimulation of the 

 vagus nerve does not inhibit the secretion due to secretin. The pressure 

 under which the fluid is secreted in the pancreatic duct is equivalent to 

 9 inches of the juice. Pancreatic juice may be activated by leucocytes 

 so that it acts upon proteids. 



Nature of the Thymus.t— Ph. Stohr maintains that the thymus is 

 from beginning to end an epithelial organ, just like a salivary gland. It 

 is no cradle of leucocytes, as some have tried to show. 



Rare Abnormality in Man.J — Gaetano Cutore describes in a man of 

 fifty-eight the rare abnormality known as " Perobrachius achirus." The 

 left arm was greatly reduced, and showed a complete absence of the bones 

 of the carpus, metacarpus, and phalanges. 



Vestige of Notochord in Skull of Centetes.S — W. Leche calls 

 attention to a strand-like structure which occurs in the adult skull of 

 Centetes ecaudatus in the median line in a ventral groove in the anterior 

 portion of the basisphenoid and posterior portion of the presphenoid 

 in front of the pituitary fossa. The vesicular supporting tissue and the 

 facts of development appear to Leche to make it clear that in Centetes 

 (and also in Ericulus) there is even in the adult skull a persistent vestige 

 of the notochord. 



New Species of Orycteropus.lJ — Einar Lonnberg describes Orycte- 

 ropus erikssoni from Northern Congo, and has been able to throw new 

 light on the peculiar teeth. It seems that the crowns are rudimentary, 

 and are in a short time completely worn off. The functional teeth are 

 thus the homologues of the roots of former teeth and of the roots of 

 normal mammalian teeth. Thus " the seemingly insurmountable 

 barriers derived from the dentary system of the T.ubulidentata, which 

 appeared to exclude them from all other Mammalia, are broken down to 

 a reasonable height." It does not seem impossible that the ancestors of 

 the Tubulidentata are to be found among the Condylarthra or some related 

 types of early mammals. 



Aquatic Genus of Muridae.f — Oldfield Thomas describes Anotomys 

 leander g. et sp. n., from Ecuador, which is evidently closely allied to 



* Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S. Wales, xxx. (1905) pp. 92-100. 

 t SB. Phys. Med. Ges. Wiirzburg, 1905, No. 4, pp. 51-60. 

 \ Anat. Anzeig., xxviii. (1906) pp. 222-9 (2 figs.). 

 § Tom. cit., pp. 235-7 (1 fig.). 



|| Arkiv f. Zool., iii. (1906) No. 3, pp. 1-35 (1 pi. and 12 figs.). 

 i Ann. Nat. Hist., xcvii. (1906) pp. 86-8. 



June 20th, 1906 u 



