392 Miscellaneous. 
On the Lymphatic Vessels in the Tail of the Young of Batrachia, 
By C. Lancer. 
Successful injections of this system of vessels facilitated the de- 
tection of many uninjected vessels, which could be traced from the 
ends of the injected portions of the tubes for a long distance in the 
tissue of the border of the tail. They not only permitted the ar- 
rangement of the whole system, but also the structure, connexion, 
and termination of the individual vessels to be investigated. 
The author found that they have sharply marked, even outlines, 
without any indentations. Their appearance, as regards the consti- 
tution of the walls and the form of the nuclei, was hardly different 
from that of the fine blood-vessels. The limitation of the capillary 
lymphatic ducts by proper walls is easily ascertained in this object. 
The capillary lymphatic vessels form a network, which in the 
smaller tadpoles, and in the fine border of the tail in larger ones, is 
diffused only in a single layer, but is overlaid on both sides with the 
network of blood-capillaries. 
At the margin of the vascular region there are capillary lym- 
phatic loops, of which some are remarkably narrowed ; but even in 
the interior of the border, thread-like anastomosing branches are also 
met with so much narrowed that their complete impermeability seems 
a matter of course. This supposition is rendered still more probable 
by the discovery of similar portions attached to injected ducts. In 
this case they had also in part become coloured, but were only per- 
meated as far as to the narrow part, usually furnished with a nucleus, 
where the coloration was limited tothe form of a pointed narrow stripe. 
Czecal terminations of the lymphatic tubules also occur; these 
issue broadly from the wall of a capillary, and usually terminate 
quickly in a point, after producing a nucleus. It is possible that 
some of these extremities may be only apparently constructed in 
this manner, and really represent only one arm of a very narrow loop, 
the continuity of which cannot be traced; but appended portions 
which run out into a fine point, free on all sides, can hardly be re- 
garded as anything but true czecal terminations of lateral ramifications. 
The signification of these, as also of the very narrow thread-like 
loops, must be genetic. In favour of this view is their similarity 
to the corresponding forms of the blood-capillaries, which are 
regarded and described as tubules in course of development. We 
must, however, in the author’s opinion, know precisely what influ- 
ence contractility and the treatment of the object may have upon 
the form of the finest vascular tubes, before we can with certainty 
regard all these vascular appendages as transition forms of new 
ducts.— Anzeige der Akad. der Wiss. in Wien, July 23, 1868. 
Deep-Sea Dredging off Spitzbergen. 
The Naturalists of the fourth Swedish Expedition to Spitzbergen 
have just returned to Stockholm, among them Smitt and Malmgren, 
the zoologists. Their collections are very considerable; they have 
brought up a good number of specimens from great depths, even 
from more than 2000 fathoms.—Lwtract from a Letter from Prof. 
Lovén, received Oct. 26, 1868. 
