Miscellaneous. 271 



to Cuba, Florida and Yucatan, Central America, Mexico and Cali- 

 fornia, Sandwich Islands, Loochoo Islands and Japan, and thence 

 across Asia and Africa to Liberia, and suggests, in view of these 

 facts and other localities on record, that the trade-winds have 

 promoted this distribution. Among the other localities are the 

 Society Islands, Feejees, Friendly Islands, New Caledonia, Eastern 

 Australia, Mauritius, Madagascar, and several parts of South Ame- 

 rica. He refers to a fact stated by Darwin, that at a distance of 

 sixty miles from land, while the ' Beagle ' was sailing before a 

 steady light breeze, the rigging was covered with vast numbers of 

 small spiders with their webs, eaich, when first coming into contact 

 with the rigging, seated upon a single filament of spider-web, and 

 so slenderly, in some cases, that a single breath of air was found 

 to bear them out of sight. Mr. M'Cook states that the specimens 

 examined by him show no variations which may not be accounted 

 for " by differences in age, or which may not come within those 

 ordinary natural differences which all animals more or less exhibit." 

 But most of the specimens had lost their colours in the alcohol in 

 which they were preserved. — Proe. Acad. Nat. Sou Philad. 1878, 

 p. 136. 



Oti the Relation of Amoeba quadrilineata and Amoeba verrucosa. 



Prof. Leidy stated that the small but characteristic amoeboid form 

 originally described by Mr. Carter (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 185(>, 

 xviii. p. 243) as Amoeba quadrilineata, from specimens found in Bom- 

 bay, he had repeatedly observed from many positions in oxu' vicinity. 

 In association with it he had noticed the singularly sluggish Amceba 

 verrucosa, and also many intermediate forms, which led him to the 

 belief that the former was the young of the latter. Subsequently, 

 in reviewing the literature of the matter, he had been gratified to 

 learn that Mr. Carter had arrived at the same result from a different 

 point of view. In investigating the history of Amoeba vernicosa., 

 he found that its germs pelded young of the character he had pre- 

 viously described as Amoeba quadrilineata (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 

 1857, XX. p. 37). 



The forms described by Perty as Amoeba natans (Kennt. kleiust. 

 Lebensformen, 1852, p. 188), by Greeff as Amoeba terrieola (Arch, 

 mikr. Anat. 1866, p. 299), and by Fromentel as Thecamceba qiiadri- 

 jiartita (' Etudes Microzoaires,' p. 346), he suspected to be the same 

 as Amoeba verrucosa. — Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. April 1878. 



On the Fossil Mammalia of South America. By M. P. Gekvais. 



Collections from the province des Mines, in Brazil, and from the 

 Argentine Republic have recently been brought to Paris by MM. 

 Ameghino, Brachct, and Larro(juo ; and the author gives the 

 following statement of some of the results of his examination of 

 them. 



