Miscellaneous, 105 



The Asteriuidae include Asterina {A. gihhosa and A. calcar) and 

 Pahnipes. Palmipes membra naceiis is verj' distinct ; but P. injia- 

 tus very clearly allies the geiuis to Asterina and even to Poraaia 

 .(P. 2mlvilhis), which I propose to unite with this family, and 

 which, in the classification of Miillcr and Troschel, formed, with the 

 Gymnasterke, the genus Asteroims. The Gymnash'rke, on the con- 

 trary, belong, as we have seeu, to the family Goniasteridas, as is 

 shown by the structure of their dentary apparatus and the presence 

 of spicules in their ambulacra. 



The Astropectinidae, reduced to the genera Astropecten {A. auran- 

 tiacus), Luidia {L. dathrata), and Ctenodiscus (C. eomicalatus), form 

 a very natural family ; but we must completely separate from them 

 the genus Archaster, or, at any rate, A. tijpicus and angulatus, 

 which, for the present, remain perfectly isolated, 



I have been unable to study any specimens of the other families, 

 and therefore preserve an absolute silence upon them, except to say 

 that, from an attentive reading of M. Sars's memoir and an examina- 

 tion of his plates, I have arrived at the conviction that, in spite of 

 its two rows of ambulacra and its other peculiarities, the genus 

 Brlsinga ought to be approximated to the Asteriadae. Perhaps 

 the odontophore may have undergone some such modification as it 

 presents in Heliaster, although the figure does not prove much in 

 this respect, but the teeth are certainly the teeth of Asteriadae. 

 This would be confirmatory of the opinion which led M. Perrier to 

 believe in the presence in Brisinga of crossed pedicellariae, which 

 he regards as characteristic of the Asteriadae. — Comptes Rendus, 

 March 11, 1878, p. 681. 



On the Aerial Respiration of some Brazilian Fishes. 

 By Prof. JoBERT. lleport by Prof. Milne-Ed waeds. 



M. Jobert, Professor at the Faculty of Sciences at Dijon, and at 

 present in Brazil, was commissioned by His Majesty Don Pedro to 

 make vaiious zoological investigations in the valley of the Upper 

 Amazon, a region the study of which was commenced some years 

 ago in a brilliant fashion by Agassiz. We have as yet no informa- 

 tion with regard to the general results obtained by M. Jobert, who 

 was at Tubatinga, near the frontier of Peru, in the month of Sep - 

 tember last ; but, recently, the Emperor of Brazil has addressed to 

 the Academy, through General Morin, a memoir by this traveller 

 upon a special subject of very considerable interest, namely, the 

 peculiar mode of respiration of several freshwater fishes inhabiting 

 that part of South America. 



In a previous memoir M. Jobert had made known the occurrence 

 of an aerial respiration in Cal/ichthys asper, a Siluroid fish which 

 inhabits the enviroVis of Bio de Janeiro, and which has the power 

 of living for a long time out of water. Like the common Loach 

 (Cobitis fossilis) of Europe, this Callichthys frequently swallows 

 bubbles of air, partly absorbs the oxygen from them by the walls of 



