Miscellaneous. ' 4938 
The sheath of the notochord becomes uniformly coloured red by 
the carmine, without showing any nucleus either in its interior or 
at its outer surface; the eosine leaves it absolutely colourless. All 
the inner surface bristles with a multitude of little conical projec- 
tions, which are continuous at their base with the hyaline substance 
of which the envelope is formed. These little cones remain colour- 
less with carmine, and acquire a bright rose-colour with eosine ; 
they do not present the appearance of nuclei, and are entirely homo- 
geneous. At the extremity of each of them is inserted, at the same 
time capping it, one of the fibres of the notochord. Lach fibre 
answers by each of its extremities to one of the projections just de- 
scribed; it is regularly cylindrical, contains no nucleus, and becomes 
coloured, like elastic tissue, yellow by the action of the picrocar- 
minate, and bright rose by eosine. 
The action of potash does not cause the breaking-up of these 
fibres into nucleated masses ; carmine, hrematoxyline, and the other 
reagents for nuclei do not reveal any in the thickness of the sheath. 
We are therefore justified in regarding them as non-cellular bodies, 
haying no relation either with the characteristic tissue of the noto- 
chord or with cartilage. On the other hand they present a struc- 
ture and histochemical reactions exactly analogous to those offered 
by the fibres which compose the axial organ of the Calamary known 
as the pen. 
From what precedes, it appears that the Amphiowus, which is 
destitute of red blood containing hemoglebine enclosed in special 
elements, also does not possess a dorsal chord comparable by its 
structure to that of all vertebrate animals. It therefore seems per- 
missible to raise doubts as to the morphological value of its noto- 
chordal axis.— Comptes Rendus, April 8, 1878, p. 898. 
On the Zoological Affinities of the Genus Mesites. 
By M. A. Mityz-Epwarps. 
In 1838, I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire described a very remarkable 
bird from Madagascar under the name of Mesites variegatus. From 
its external characters he had great difficulty in referring it to any 
definite place in the system; and he remarked that it resembled the 
Heliornithes in its head, the Penelopes and Curassows in its body, 
and especially its wings, and the Pigeons in its feet. Some years 
later M. Desmurs described a somewhat different bird under the 
name of Mesites unicolor as a new species. G. R. Gray, in his 
‘Genera of Birds,’ arranged Mesites in the family Megapodiide, 
close to Letpoa; and in this he was followed by Bonaparte, Reichen- 
bach, and Hartlaub; but in the British-Museum Catalogue of Birds, 
Gray shifted the genus to the Passeres, as forming a section of the 
family Eupetide. Sundevall accepted this view; and Hartlaub, in 
his last work on the birds of Madagascar, placed Mesttes after the 
Motacillide, among the Dentirostres. 
All this time the only known specimens were the two originally 
described respectively by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Desmurs ; 
but M. A. Grandidier has recently received from Tamatavya two 
Ann & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 5. Vol. 1. 34 
