1000 Transactions of the American Institute. 



degrees or twenty-nine degrees, and pursuing its northeasterly ti'ack 

 at least to longitude thirty-live degrees and latitude forty-five 

 degrees, occupying twelve days in its journey. 



"Worms Infesting tue Bkain of Birds, 

 Dr. Jeffries Wyman has communicated to the Boston Society of 

 Natural History a description of an animal parasite, the thread worm, 

 found in the brain of seventeen out of nineteen specimens of the 

 snake bird, or water turkey, shot in Florida. The presence of these 

 parasites in the cranial cavity of the Anhlnga seems to be its normal 

 condition ; yet nothing is known of the manner in which the embryo 

 finds its Avay into the bird. Dr. Wyman says parasites have occa- 

 sionally been found infesting the brain or its membranes in man and 

 animals, but far less frequently than in other regions of the body. 

 The species, referrabie chiefly to four genera, are confined almost 

 wholly to man and domestic animals, such as sheep, reindeer, drome- 

 dary, horse and ox ; and among the wild animals, to the chamois, 

 roebuck, and a few others. That they have not been more frequently 

 seen in wild species is doubtless due to the fact that but few brains 

 of these have been examined. 



Effect of Light on Mineral Oils, 



Ilerr Grotowski, of Halle on the Saale, Prussia, has made some 

 remarkable communications on the new property of hydrocarbon oils, 

 whicli was discovered by him, In exposing various kinds of such 

 oils to the rays of light in glass balloons, he invariably found that 

 they absorbed oxygen, and converted this gas into its allotropsic con- 

 dition, ozone. It was further ascertained that even the air was thus 

 ozonized in well ' corked vessels, the effect being to some degree 

 dependent upon the color of the glass. The respective results were 

 marked down after the space of three months. But, before enumer- 

 ating them, it will be proper to remark the term protogen is applied 

 to oils from peator bituminous coal which distil between 212 degrees 

 and 552 degrees Fahrenheit, having a specific gravity between 0.795 

 and 0.805. The name " solar oil " is given b}' the Germans to oils 

 having a specific gravity of from 0,830 to 0.8.35, and distilling above 

 a temperature of 550 degrees Fahrenheit, The former are burned in 

 lamps adapted for that object, the latter in Argand and Carcel lamps. 

 The observations of Ilerr Grotowski are the following : 



1. Solar oil and p^iotogen, which were stored in barrels and cis- 



