Miscellaneous. 
95 
as a modified segment of the body, its nature being indicated by 
the existence on each side of it of a mamilla and two very long 
hairs, characters which arc repeated upon every segment. Ho de¬ 
scribes the structure of the tail, indicating how the outer tube 
bends more or less according as the internal tube is more or less 
retracted. The retraction of the internal tube is due to two mus¬ 
cles inserted at its superior extremity; and at this extremity there 
are, moreover, some gigantic cells with large nuclei having in the 
interior as a product of elaboration a long twisted filament. Con¬ 
nected with the two tracheal ramifications there are in the body 
two sacs, almost equal to it in length, formed of an external struc¬ 
tureless membrane and containing small free globules. These 
globules on analysis prove to consist principally of earthy car¬ 
bonates (carbonates of lime and magnesia). 
The digestive apparatus has in its vestibule two chitinous plates. 
In the pharyngeal bulb there are, besides the two jaws, eight very 
peculiar beards ( fanoni ) consisting of two series of divaricated 
barbules. The salivary glands, which open beneath the inferior 
anastomosis of the jaws, have in their excretory tube a chitinous 
interna with a spiral thread, just as in the interior of the tracheae 
and of a portion of the silk-glands of the Lepidoptera. The “ val¬ 
vular apparatus ” of Plateau, or (better) the gizzard , leaves a 
closed peripheral space where there is an endothelium ; the middle 
intestine or chylific stomach, which is very long, is preceded by four 
ventricular glands, accompanied by four Malpighian tubes. These, 
which discharge by four distinct orifices, unite in pairs to form an 
upper and a lower loop. The anal glands, which contain a great 
quantity of urates, are composed each of a straight part and another 
which is folded back ; they present a muscular ligamont which 
straightens them when they are drawn outwards. 
Besides the supra- and suboesophageal ganglia the nervous system 
includes two intermediate ones, which, by means of a peduncle 
inserted into the lateral commissure, fit in between the two, especi¬ 
ally in the antero-superior zone. A sympathic system starts 
from the lower surface of the anterior extremity of the nervous 
chain. Tho thoracic and abdominal ganglia are united into a band, 
which immediately follows the central system above described. 
Small cells exist in the intermediate, and large ones in the supra- 
cesophageal and suboesophageal ganglia; these are few in the former, 
but very numerous in the latter. 
The tracheal tubes have in their anterior stigma, besides a solid 
terminal sheath, an involucrum lined internally with an endothelium, 
and containing very large cells, in the same way as above described 
for the tail, interposed between tho involucrum in question and the 
tube of the trachea. — Soc. Tosc. di Scienze Nat., Proc. Verb., Nov. 10, 
1878. 
On the Dentition of Smilodon. By M. P. Gervais. 
The Smilodontes are great Fclidoe found fossil in the caves and 
in the deposits of the Pampas of South America (Brazil and the 
