310 On the Temperature of the Incubating Female Python. 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE XIU. 
Fig. 1. Membranipora discreta, un. sp. 
Fig. 2.. Lepralia affinis, n. sp. 
Fig. 3. Lepralia ochracea, n. sp. 
Fig. 4. Lepralia hastata, nu. sp.: 4 a, rostrum, with avicularium. 
Fig. 5. Lepralha armata, n. sp. 
Fig. 6. Cellepora avicularis, Hincks: 6a, the preoral rostrum. 
Fig. 7. Cellepora dichotoma, u..sp.; nat. size. 
Fig. 8. Cellepora dichotoma; portion magnified. 
Fig. 9. Valkeria tremula, n. sp. 
[To be continued. | 
XXXVI.—Note on the Temperature of the Female Python Sebze 
during Incubation. By P. L. Scuater, Ph.D., F.R.S. 
In the communication made to the French Académie des Sciences 
Naturelles, in 1841, by M. Valenciennes, and published in their 
‘Comptes Rendus’ for July of that year (vol. xi. p. 126), certain 
results are stated to have been arrived at from careful observa- 
tions made during the incubation of a female of the Indian Python 
(Python bivittatus), which deposited eggs in the menagerie of the 
Jardin des Plantes on the 5th of May 1841, and hatched out eight 
young ones on the 8rd of July following. M. Valenciennes’s 
own words on this subject are as follows :—“ II faut conclure de 
cette observation que la femelle du Python bivittatus couve ses 
ceufs, qwils sont. cinquante-six jours au moins a éclore, et que 
pendant ce temps animal développe une chaleur propre qui 
diminue cependant graduellement 4 mesure que l’on approche 
du moment de léclosion des ceufs.”” From the table of observa- 
tions which is appended to M. Valenciennes’s article, it appears 
that the heat of the incubating female decreased gradually from 
41°:5 Cent. (when she first commenced incubation) to 28° Cent. 
(when the young Pythons were produced),—the temperature of 
the chamber in which she was kept varying meanwhile from 
17° to 28° Centigrade. 
When the female Python Sebe in the Zoological Society’s 
reptile-house deposited eggs on the 18th of January last, and 
commenced sitting upon them, it became a matter of much in- 
terest to ascertain whether M. Valenciennes’s views as to the 
evolution of heat by the incubating Python could be substan- 
tiated. The thermometers we first used for these experiments 
being found imperfect, Messrs. Negretti and Zambra, the well- 
known instrument-makers, on being applied to, kindly supplied 
us with others of great, nicety, manufactured specially for the 
purpose. 
The following is the result, in a tabular form, of the observa- 
tions made with these instruments by Mr. A. D. Bartlett, the 
