304 Miscellaneous. 
if it be cut away, the animal, when once at rest, remains immoveable 
upon the sand, without any indication of voluntary determination. 
But it is still extremely sensitive, and regularly executes the move- 
ments of the muscles of the belly which aid in respiration. I have 
seen the general reflex movements persist for more than a week in a 
decapitated Amphiozus. : 
The immersion of an Amphioxus in sea-water charged with blue 
litmus (Vulpian’s method) furnished no evidence of an acid secretion 
in its intestinal tube, unless perhaps in the buccal cavity. As to the 
large greenish appendage which is usually denominated the liver, I 
have been unable to perceive, under the microscope, the production 
of violascent spots by the action of acidulated tincture of iodine ; hot 
nitric acid gives it a rather bright bottle-green colour. at 
Neither in the liver and excrements, nor in those singular bodies, 
differing in different animals in number, size, and position, which J. 
Miiller regards as the kidneys, could I detect the presence of uric 
acid by the microscopic reaction of murexide. 
I believe I am the first to have witnessed the ejection of the semen ; 
it issues by the abdominal pore in a continuous jet, reinforced by 
pulsations due to the abdominal muscles; the spermatozoids, which 
are free and active, retain their movements for about twenty-four 
hours in sea-water (at 59° F.). They then measured :—head 0°008 ; 
tail 0:040-0:048 millim., but generally 0°045 millim. The detection 
of this spontaneous emission of the semen is important, as it compels 
us to regard the Amphioxus as an adult and definitive form. 
If the extremity of the body of an Amphiovus be cut off, the wound 
does not cicatrize; on the contrary, the tissues become gradually 
disintegrated. I have seen animals, with only the tail mutilated, 
become gradually eaten away up to the middle of the branchial region, 
and live thus without intestines, without abdominal walls, and with- 
out branchiz for several days. In this destruction the disks of the 
dorsal cord become detached, and the muscular fibres become dis- 
sociated, lose their striee, and disappear: the wound acquires a rosy 
colour. 
Immersion for two minutes in water at 106° F. kills the Amphiowi ; 
but although incapable of spontaneous movements, they are still lo- 
cally contractile. Fresh water kills them with convulsions in two or 
three minutes ; they then become opaque and rigid, and their muscles 
no longer contract, even under the influence of induced currents in- 
supportable by the dry fingers. If, then, the animal be again placed 
in sea-water, contractility is seen to return in a few hours, and then 
sensibility. Ifthe cessation of the movement of the vibratile cilia 
has been waited for, it reappears in sea-water, but contractility and 
sensibility are finally lost. 
The presence in water of a very small quantity of strychnine kills 
the Amphioxi with tetanic convulsions; morphine stupefies them 
(even when the cephalic extremity has been removed), leaving them, 
however, when in small quantity, their sensibility ; lastly, curari 
renders them immobile without affecting their contractility, and this 
even when their integuments are uninjured.—Comptes Rendus, 
August 26, 1867, pp. 364-367. 
