Miscellaneous. 99 



place side by side with the last-mentioned species, in the genus 

 Haptophrya ; and on account of its large size I name it H. gigantea. — 

 Comptes Rendus, May 5, 1879, p. 921. 



Trichinosis in a Hippopotamus. By M. E. Heckel. 



M. Heckel describes some observations made by him upon a 

 young Hippopotamus, about two years old, which died on the 

 10th of May last in the zoological garden of Marseilles, having 

 been received from Egypt about four months before. The animal 

 was in bad health all the time of its residence at Marseilles ; and 

 its skin showed an eruption of confluent boils. When removed, the 

 skin showed several lesions in the shape of deep ulcerations, which, 

 having originated around a hair, had attacked the bulb, and thus 

 formed a canal leading generally into a great purulent cavity. 

 Smaller ulcerations led into smaller cavities bounded by a proper 

 membrane, like true cysts, and filled with creamy pus. The exa- 

 mination of a section of the muscular tissue surrounding one of 

 these cysts showed it to contain great numbers of Trichina- cysts, 

 resembling those of Trichina spiralis, with which also the enclosed 

 worm agreed. The cysts, however, seemed to bo much more deve- 

 loped than in the pig or in man. 



Upon this curious and interesting fact the author has the fol- 

 lowing remarks : — " I am ignorant," he says, " what relations may 

 exist between the presence, in the same animal, of Trichina and of 

 enormous cysts filled with pus ; but the fact indicated by me 

 appears to possess some interest .... because it seems to prove 

 that the Pachyderms, more than other animals, are exposed to the 

 spontaneous development of this terrible parasite — an important 

 point which may serve to throw some light upon its hitherto un- 

 known migrations. It has been attempted to explain the frequency 

 of the Trichina in the pig, by the consideration of the voracity and 

 filthy habits of that animal. The fact to which I now call atten- 

 tion seems to protest against this opinion ; for the hippopotamus by 

 no means shares in the mode of existence and the tastes of the pig ; 

 and we can hardly suppose that captivity, by the special diet which 

 accompanies it, could have a marked influence upon the develop- 

 ment of the Nematoid worm." — Comptes Rendus, June 2, 1879, 

 p. 1139. 



On the Apparatus of Sound in some South-American Fishes. 

 By M. W. Sorexsen. 



During my residence, in 1877 and 1 878, at the mouth of the 

 Biacho del Oro, in the Bio Paraguay, I was enabled to make some 

 investigations into the mode in which several fishes of these rivers, 

 especially those of the families Siluroidei and Characini, produce 

 peculiar sounds. The swimming-bladder is the principal organ 



