Miscellaneous. 343 



form, completely concealing the head and body. The male bird, on 

 the contrary, throws up his wings alternately, as if using them as 

 shields, and displays much pugnacity. The latter diifers in colour 

 from the female, his plumage being dark brown, with bars of a lighter 

 shade; the primaries and secondaries of the wings are very dark 

 brown, barred with black ; the crest is also of a much darker shade 

 of grey than in the female ; the bill and legs are of a bright orange- 

 red colour. When seen together, the male appears small compared 

 with the female. The latter utters a growling kind of scream ; while 

 the male makes a noise between a bark and a laugh, which is difficult to 

 express in words, terminating in the oft-repeated note of do, ou, 66, do. 

 The male bird is very lively, and readily attacks its aggressors. 



The Kagu is becoming very scarce in New Caledonia, — one cause 

 of its rarity being that numbers have been shot for the table, 

 these birds being excellent eating. It is now difficult to procure 

 them dead, and still more so to take them alive. They are only 

 found in one part of the island, about ten miles distant from the set- 

 tlement of Port de France, where a gentleman told me he offered a 

 large reward to the natives to procure one to take with him to France, 

 but without success. The birds sent to me had been in the posses- 

 sion of private individuals for some time. The Kagus are easily 

 domesticated, and, when captured, are placed in the poultry-yard 

 with the fowls, where they soon become tame ; but, as a matter of 

 precaution, one of their wings is usually clipped. These birds are 

 only met with about small marshes or ponds, feeding on worms, 

 slugs, &c. The nest and eggs have not yet been discovered, although 

 every exertion has been and is still being made by some of my resi- 

 dent friends in New Caledonia for that purpose. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



On Alternate Generation in the Annelida, and the Embryology of 



Autolytus cornutus. By A. Agassiz. 

 From the works of Oersted, Grube, J. Miiller, Max Miiller, and 

 Keferstein, it appears that Autolytus presents the rare peculiarity 

 among Annehdes of a striking polymorphism, the males being indeed 

 so different from the females that the two sexes have been described 

 as belonging to distinct genera. There exists also in each species a 

 third form, namely, the asexual form, which produces the sexual 

 individuals by gemmation at its posterior extremity — the alternation 

 of generations in these worms being now well established. 



Sir. A. Agassiz has found in the harbour of Boston the Autolytus 

 of which the males were described by Oersted, in 1843, under the 

 name of Polybostrichus setosus, from Greenland. He has hkewise 

 observed, in the same locality, another species, to which he gives the 

 name of Autolytus cornutus — a species which appears to be nearly 

 related to the European Autolytus (Saceonereis) Helgolandia. The 

 differences between the individuals of the two sexes are of the same 

 nature as in the European species. The females, at the moment of 

 their detachment from the organic individuals, possess no ovigerous 



