Miscellaneous. 343 
form, completely concealing the head and body. The male bird, on 
the contrary, throws up his wings alternately, as if using them as 
shields, and displays much pugnacity. The latter differs in colour 
from the female, his plumage being dark brown, with bars of a lighter 
shade; the primaries and secondaries of the wings are very dark 
brown, barred with black; the crest is also of a much darker shade 
of grey than in the female; the bill and legs are of a bright orange- 
red colour. When seen together, the male appears small compared 
with the female. The latter utters a growling kind of scream ; while 
the male makes a noise between a bark and a laugh, which is difficult to 
express in words, terminating in the oft-repeated note of 60, 00, 60, 00. 
The male bird is very lively, and readily attacks its aggressors. 
The Kagu is becoming very scarce in New Caledonia,—one cause 
of its rarity bemg that numbers have been shot for the table, 
these birds being excellent eating. It is now difficult to procure 
them dead, and still more so to take them alive. They are only 
found in one part of the island, about ten miles distant from the set- 
tlement of Port de France, where a gentleman told me he offered a 
large reward to the natives to procure one to take with him to France, 
but without success. The birds sent to me had been in the posses- 
sion of private individuals for some time. The Kagus are easily 
domesticated, and, when captured, are placed in the poultry-yard 
with the fowls, where they soon become tame ; but, as a matter of 
precaution, one of their wings is usually clipped. These birds are 
only met with about smail marshes or ponds, feeding on worms, 
slugs, &c. The nest and eggs have not yet been discovered, although 
every exertion has been and is still being made by some of my resi- 
dent friends in New Caledonia for that purpose. 
> 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
On Alternate Generation in the Annelida, and the Embryology of 
Autolytus cornutus. By A. AGassiz. 
From the works of Oersted, Grube, J. Miller, Max Miller, and 
Keferstein, it appears that 4utolytus presents the rare peculiarity 
among Annelides of a striking polymorphism, the males being indeed 
so different from the females that the two sexes have been described 
as belonging to distinct genera. There exists also in each species a 
third form, namely, the asexual form, which produces the sexual 
individuals by gemmation at its posterior extremity—the alternation 
of generations in these worms being now well established. 
Mr. A. Agassiz has found in the harbour of Boston the Autolytus 
of which the males were described by Oersted, in 1843, under the 
name of Polybostrichus setosus, from Greenland. He has likewise 
observed, in the same locality, another species, to which he gives the 
name of Autolytus cornutus—a species which appears to be nearly 
related to the European Autolytus (Sacconereis) Helgolandie. The 
differences between the individuals of the two sexes are of the same 
nature as in the European species. The females, at the moment of 
their detachment from the organic individuals, possess no ovigerous 
