446 Miscellaneous. 
Since this, whilst carrying on in my garden that seemingly un- 
avoidable slaughter of slugs, I have on two occasions extracted the 
Mermis from the bodies of the common white slug (imax agrestis). 
The last instance was in May 1865, when, while killing a small slug 
about three-quarters of an inch long, with a piece of stick, I saw that 
I had another worm, and extracted it entire, without injury; it was 
more than three inches in length, cream-coloured, with a faint dark 
line, firm and rigid as usual: it surprised me that it could have been 
carried about in so small a compass. This individual I kept alive 
. some time in a small phial, with a drop of water to keep it moist. 
It is easy to speculate on the object the hair-worm has to attain in 
climbing during or immediately after a shower; possibly it may be 
the deposition of ova. 
Hurstpierpoint, Nov. 1867. 
Experiments on the Azolotl. By M. Aucusre Dum&riL. 
Since I had the honour of informing the Academy that the Mexi- 
can Urodelous Batrachia with external branchize, called axolotls, 
which had never previously been seen living in Europe, had reproduced 
in the Menagerie of Reptiles, and that many of those born there had 
undergone metamorphoses*, numerous births have taken place 
there, and other transformations like the former have occurred. 
Thus, up to the present time, we have seen sixteen of these animals 
become covered with yellowish-white spots contrasting with the 
darker general tint, then lose their branchial apparatus completely, 
as well as the membranous crest of the back and tail. At the same 
time the internal organs have undergone changes comparable with 
those which are observed in the Urodelous Batrachia in passing 
from the larval to the adult state. Of the four arches supporting 
the branchize which float outside, three have disappeared ; the outer- 
most one alone remains, and constitutes the posterior joint of the 
thyroidean horn. The anterior surface of the bodies of the vertebree 
has become less concave. As in all the other Salamandriform Ba- 
trachia, a modification has taken place in the arrangement of the 
dental apparatus of the vault of the palate, the vomerine teeth having 
changed their place. They were united on each side behind the 
intermaxillary bone into a small band slightly oblique from in front 
and within, backwards and outwards; but after the metamorphosis 
they form, beyond the inner orifices of the nasal fossee, a nearly 
transverse row—an arrangement which, with the absence of the pos- 
terior palatine teeth, occurs only in the North American tritons called 
Amblystomi, of which the axolotls consequently appear to be the 
tadpoles. In the lower jaw, to the right and left of the symphysis 
behind the marginal row, there was a group of small teeth which is 
no longer to be seen. 
Such is a very summary general account of the characteristic facts 
of a metamorphosis never previously observed, and which possesses 
* Comptes Rendus, tome Ix. p. 765, and Ixi. p.775: see Annals, ser. 3. 
vol. xvii. p. 156. 
