164 Miscellaneous. 



" Natural Selection " might have seized upon, with reference to 

 some special benefit, but a combination of features which have no 

 apparent dependence upon each other, correlated, but not necessarily- 

 connected? Why should " Natural Selection," altering for its own 

 purpose the palm of the four-fingered mole-cricket into that of the 

 two-fingered species in South America, or developing in South 

 America, from some previous synthetic form of mole- cricket, both 

 the present four-fingered and two-fingered species, and in other 

 parts of the world the four-fingered species only (destroying at the 

 same time the primaeval form all over the surface of the globe), at 

 the same time place rows of hairs on the hinder part of the abdomen 

 of the tetradactylate group, and none on that of the didactylate ? or 

 make the veins of the tegmina of the § °f one group distant and 

 irregular, and those of the other straight and approximate ? Why 

 furnish the eighth abdominal segment of the S of one with a pro- 

 jecting tooth, and deprive those of the others of such a prominence ? 

 Why give one long and the other short anal cerci, or clothe the 

 hind tarsal nails of one with short hairs and leave the other naked ? 

 What have these features to do with the differences of structure we 

 have mentioned in the palm-shaped fore leg, or in the length of the 

 hind leg? These and similar difficulties, arising on every hand, 

 seem to attend every derivative theory of the origin of species. — 

 Silliman's American Journal, November 1868. 



The Finner Whale of the North Sea. 



M. G. 0. Sars, the son of the well-known Professor of Christiania, 

 has published a very interesting paper on the individual variations 

 of the Finner Whale, in which he has compared, and formed tables 

 of the measiirements of, the eighteen specimens of the Finner Whale 

 of the North Sea described by Sibbald, Midler, and other zoologists. 

 He comes to the conclusion that there are six species, viz. Bahe- 

 noptera musculus, B. Carolince, B. gigas, B. laticeps, B. rostrata, and 

 Megaptera longimana. 



The Scrag Whale of Dudley. 



Mr. Cope, in the 'Journal of the Academy of Sciences of Philadel- 

 phia,' 1868, p. 222, describes the bones of an imperfect specimen of 

 the Scrag Whale that was described by Dudley in 1725, but has not 

 been seen by any naturalist since that period. It has a smooth 

 throat, like the Right Whale ; it has only four slender fingers at the 

 carpus, and the bladebone of the Finner or Balasnoptera. He pro- 

 poses for it a new genus named Agaphelus. It is to be regretted 

 that the cranium, cervical and dorsal vertebrae, and first ribs were 

 carried away by the tide before the skeleton was examined. It 

 proves a most interesting genus, intermediate in structure between 

 the Eight Whale and the Finner. It does not prove the truth of the 

 theory of Capt. Atwoods, that the Scrag Whales " were probably 

 specimens of the Eight Whale that had been left by their mothers 



