398 Miscellaneous. 
their course of flight, so far as rising and falling, as I have seen them 
go over the rising surface of a not very high wave, and their flight 
is also almost always slightly dipping. I have also thought they 
sometimes altered their course to the right or left without touching 
the surface of the water; but it may have been owing to the wind. 
They will often barely touch the surface of the water, and rise again, 
keeping on in the same or an altered course. There went a shoal 
of a dozen or twenty this very minute, rising and falling slightly, and 
entering the water and issuing from it again and again, and altering 
their course, for the distance of seventy-five to one hundred yards. 
The motion of the fin is ot always steady, as I have seen when 
they rose near the ship and the sun struck favourably upon them ; for 
in those cases the motion was intermittent in velocity, though kept 
up all the time, and might be represented by a line more or less 
shaded. I have observed them fly thirty or forty yards without 
touching the water, though I should say usually they would not go 
more than half that distance. They do not usually rise much over a 
foot above the surface of the water, often much less, though one was 
said to have come on board the other day, and to do that, I should 
think, must have risen at least eight or ten feet.—Proc. Boston Soc. 
N. H. x. p. 21. 
On some Marsupial Fishes. By L. AGassiz. 
Professor Agassiz states that at Teffé he discovered several species 
of the family Chromidze which carry their eggs at the bottom of the 
mouth in a marsupial pouch formed by the superior pharyngeal 
bones and the anterior cavity of the first branchial arch. This appa- 
ratus is furnished with numerous nervous filaments, which spring 
from a special inflation of the medulla elongata immediately behind 
the cerebellum. This inflation resembles the ‘electrical lobe of the 
Malapteruri. Other species carry their eggs in the folds of their 
lips, such as the Loricari@ ; others, such as the Hypostomi, hatch 
theirs like birds.. .. . The changes of form undergone by the young 
fish are very instructive as regards classification. A Scomberesocid 
of a new genus has jaws resembling those of Belone; but when 
young, the upper jaw is so short that it might be taken for a Hemi- 
rhamphus.—AdAnn. Sci. Nat. 1866, tome v. p. 228. 
On the Occurrence of an Internal Convoluted Piate within the Body 
of certain Species of Crinoidea. By James Hatt. 
During the investigations upon the Crinoidea of the Carboniferous 
Limestones of Iowa, there were discovered in the broken bodies of 
several species a vertical convoluted plate, filling a large part of the 
cavity of the body. At that time I showed several of these specimens 
to Prof. Agassiz, who informed me that he had observed a similar 
convoluted plate in the body of Comatula. 
This convoluted intestinal plate was first observed in the body 
of Actinocrinus pentagonus, and afterwards in A. longirostris, 
A. erodus, A. Verneuili, and in a species of the type of 4A. um- 
