2813.] Imperial Institute of France, 307 



nerves, with distinct divisions of the first pair, and which open 

 most commonly into the palate, behind the fore-teeth, by a 

 canal which passes through the hole called inciswe by anato- 

 mists. This organ does not exist in man, and is more distinct 

 in most herbivorous animals than in the carnivorous. We must 

 suppose that it is connected with some of those faculties which 

 nature has given to quadrupeds, but denied to our species, as 

 that of rejecting poisonous substances, of distinguishing the sex, 

 the state of heat, &c. 



The particular history of animals is enriched with important 

 works and interesting observations. 



M. de Humboldt, Foreign Associate, has published the first 

 volume of his Observations on the Animals of America, in which 

 he has inserted not only his different researches on the condor, 

 the electric eel, the crocodile, and many other objects of which 

 we have spoken in our preceding analyses ; but he has likewise 

 given several new memoirs, namely, on the apes of the New 

 World, of which Button and Gmelin only made known 11 or 

 12 species, but which Humboldt, uniting his observations with 

 those of Azzara and Geoftroy-Saint-Hilaire, makes 46. He 

 has recently read to the Class another memoir, intended for 

 his second volume, in which he describes new species of ser- 

 pents that he found in Guyana. 



The tempests which agitated the sea last winter threw ashore 

 several large cetaceous fish upon our coasts. The Class ap- 

 pointed, as a commission to examine the facts which were re- 

 ceived respecting these animals, MM. le Comte Lacepede, 

 Geoffioy-Saint-Hilaire, and Cuvier. 



These naturalists have observed that several of these animals 

 were formerly unknown, and that this subject, which might be 

 interesting to our fisheries and our commerce, deserved to draw 

 the attention of Government. They gave a description of a 

 •pedes thrown ashore in great numbers near St. Brieux. M. 

 Lemaout, naturalist and apothecary in that city, having col- 

 lected with much care all the essential parts, it was easy to re- 

 cognise a species of dolphin hitherto unknown to naturalists, 

 and of which there only existed a bad figure in the treatise on 

 fishes by Duhamel. It is distinguished by the globular form 

 of the head, almost similar to an ancient helmet. Its length is 

 about 20 feet. 



We noticed last year the researches of M. Lamouroux on the 

 innumerable and very small eels, known at the mouths of some 

 of our rivers by the name of moutee, and we announced the 

 probability that they might belong to some of the little known 

 species of this genus. AI. Lamouroux has determined by new 

 experiments, that the montee u the fry of the pimperneau, a 

 species of. eel noticed by Lacepede in hi*, history of fishes, and 



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