1888.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 93 



its mode of occurrence, various forms, sexual development, and systematic re- 

 lations are first treated. Then follows a key to the genera, accompanied by 

 figures and a systematic description of all knov^^n species of Illinois. 



Alcohol a Food. — Gen. A. W. Greely, in the Fortmi, says: — The sub- 

 ject of alcohol w^as frequently and generally discussed during the winter at 

 Cape Sabine, and all,without exception, concurred in the opinion that spirits 

 should be taken after a day's labor was over, and not before or during exhaust- 

 ing work, nor while suffering from exposure that was to be continued. Later, 

 when the party had been slowly starving for many months, and when the sup- 

 ply of food was so diminished as to necessitate a greater reduction of rations, 

 the pure alcohol on hand was issued as food, being diluted by about three 

 times its weight of water. Each man received daily perhaps a quarter of an 

 ounce of alcohol, the effect of which was most beneficial. The general im- 

 pression was that the alcohol supplemented food, and had a decided aliment- 

 ary value. There could be no question of its beneficial effects as a mental 

 stimulus to every member of the party under the unfortunate conditions at 

 Sabine. 



Histology of the muscles of the fly. — B. Thompson Lowne* finds in 

 insects three varieties of striated muscle, two of which differ from the form 

 common in mammalia. Strangely, what would seem the highest form of 

 insect muscle is found in the vermiform larva, and disappears in the imago ; 

 and it is like the kind found in mammals, consisting of a number of pris- 

 matic columns surrounded by an intercolumnar substance mapping it into 

 the irregular ' fields of Cohnheim.' In the imago two forms distinct from that 

 of the larva may be seen, and have been recognized by Dr. Weismann and 

 M. Viallaines, "designated as the ordinary muscles and the muscles of flight. 

 The latter consist of very large columns devoid of an investing sheath. In 

 optical, longitudinal section each fibre is seen to consist of very fine beaded 

 fibrillse imbedded in a ground substance of low refractive power, in which rows 

 of very small oval nuclei are found. These are unlike other muscles physi- 

 ologically, their contraction being vibratile, like an artificial incomplete tet- 

 anus ; that is, a prolonged series of single contractions, with fatigue period of 

 extremely short duration. If the interfibrillar material be nutrient its abun- 

 dance between the contractile fibres is explained in relation to the physiologi- 

 cal properties of the muscle. 



The third type, or ordinary muscle of the imago, consists of a single hol- 

 low column ; the cavity is an axial canal, which encloses a row of nuclei. 

 The fibre has a more or less distinct sarcolemma. It is most like the heart 

 muscle of vertebrates in structure. Physiologically it is not fully understood, 

 but its contractions seem clonic, rather than tetanic ; a sharp, sudden, but not 

 sustained, contraction, or powerful single contractions. 



The staining of animal and Vegetable tissues.! — IV. 



By ARTHUR J. DOHERTY 



MANCHESTER, ENGLAND. 



STAINING BLOOD CORPUSCLES. 



Smear the centre of a glass slip with a drop of freshly-drawn blood from 

 a fi"og or newt, and add a drop of a saturated aqueous solution of picric acid. 

 In five minutes absord the acid with filtering paper, and flood the slip with 

 picro-carmine {formula supra). At the end of an honr, drain oft" the stain, 



* Journ. Qiiekett Micr. Club, Dec, 1887, p. 182. 

 t Continued from page 50. 



