ti4 
NATURE 
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States. As yet I only have had time to refer to a few which 
appeared to bear more immediately on the objects I had in view, 
but I hope on some future occasion to return to the subject. In 
the meantime I must content myself with glancing rapidly over 
the different countries, taking them inthe order adopted in my 
former addreses, and endeavouring to show the progress making 
in supplying our deficiencies. Towards these deficiencies I 
would particularly call the attention of entomologists and terres- 
trial malacologists, for insects and land shells are of all others 
the animals whose life and local stations are the most closely 
dependent on vegetation. In the following notes I am further 
precluded from entering into details as to the zoological works 
or memoirs mentioned, by the consideration that they would be 
superseded by the analysis given in the annual reviews inserted 
in Wiegmann’s Archiv, and more especially in our own admirably 
conducted Zoological Record, which so strongly claims the support 
of everyone interested in the promotion of Zoological Science, 
(Zo be continued.) 

ZOOLOGY 
Note on Transversely Striated Muscular Fibre among 
the Gasteropoda.” 
J‘ studying the radula of a species of Acmea (probably 4. 
Borneensis Rye), obtained by Prof. A. S. Bickmore at Am- 
boyna, I noticed, on placing the structure under a power of 100 
diameters, that certain of the muscular fibres which adhered to 
it, when torn from the buccal mass, had a different appearance 
from the others. On increasing the power to some 800 diame- 
ters, it was at once evident that the different aspect of these fasci- 
culi was caused by fine, but clearly defined, transverse striation. 
Suspecting that it was an optical delusion, caused by a very 
regular arcangement of the nuclei of the fibres, I subjected the 
muscle to various tests and to still higher magnifying powers. I 
also introduced under the same glass some of the voluntary 
dorsal muscles of a small crustacean for comparison. The struc- 
ture of the ultimate fibres in both appeared to be similar. These 
seemed to be composed of a homogeneous tube or cylindrical 
band of translucent matter, with nuclei interspersed at irregular 
intervals. In neither was there any appearance of separation 
into transverse discs, as is seen in the striated muscles of verte- 
brates. That the striated appearance was not due to contraction 
and folding of the muscle, was evident upon taking a side view 
of one of the fibres, when the strize on each side, as well as the 
intervening elevations, were seen to correspond exactly to each 
other. The only perceptible differences between the muscles of the 
crustacean and the striated muscles of the mollusk, appeared to 
be that the latter were much more finely striate ; the strice being 
six to eight times as numerous as in the former in the same 
space. No difference between the striated and nonstriated 
muscles of the Acmwa could be observed, except in the fact of 
the striation. In both the nuclei were irregularly distributed. 
The appearance of the striated fibre reminded one of a string of 
rhombic beads, which bore no relation to the position of the 
true nuclei. The striated fibres appeared, after a careful dissec- 
tion of the parts in a number of specimens, to be the retractors 
of the radula ; they were longer and in narrower bands than 
the nonstriated fibres, and comparatively much fewer in number. 
The striation was most evident toward the middle of the fibres, 
and became evanescent toward their extremities. 
Lebert and Robin (Miiller’s Arch. f. Anat. and Phys., 1846, 
p- 126) state that the primitive muscular fasciculi of invertebrates 
often have the nuclei and intervening clear spaces ‘‘ arranged in 
such regular order that they might, at the first glance, be mis- 
taken for transversely striated muscular fibres. The latter, how- 
ever, are actually found in one acephalous mollusk, /ec/en (and 
probably in Zima also), and some annelids,” and are constantly 
present in the voluntary muscles of Crustacea and Zusecta, In 
the further researches of M. Lebert (Annales Sci. Nat., t. xiii. 
1850, p. 161), he observes that there is nothing extraordinaty in 
the discovery of transversely striated muscular fibre in Podysea 
(ZEschara) by Milne-Edwards, and in dctinia by Erdl, since 
“the further we have pursued the study of the comparative 
histology of muscular fibre, the more convinced we have become 
that transversely striated muscular fibre is to be found in a large 
* 
Communicated by the author, from the “ American Journal of Science 
and Aris,” vol, i., Feb, 1871. 

number of animals of very inferior organisation, without regard 
to their more or less advanced position in the animal kingdom,” 
Striated muscular fibre has lately been shown to exist in the 
‘*tail” or appendix of Appendicularia by Moss (Trans. Lin. Soc., 
vol. xxvii. p. 300). It was already known to exist in Sa/fa, 
(Eschricht, ov. Salperne), in the articulated brachiopoda (Han- 
cock, Tr. Roy. Soc., 1857, p. 805), and in Fecten (Lebert, An- 
nales Sci. Nat. 1850, 3rd ser. t. xili. p. 166; and Wagner, 
Lehrb. d. vergleich. Anat., t. ii. p. 470, 1847), as well as in 
Lschara (Milne-Edwards, Annales Sci. Nat., series ii. t. iv. p. 
3). I believe, however, that this is the first instance in which it 
has been shown to exist in the class Gasteropoda ; and this, as 
well as the rarity of such cases among the lower invertebrates, is 
a sufficient apology for bringing forward such an isolated fact. 
Other duties have not yet permitted me to determine whether this 
phenomenon is constant throughout the genus, or whether it does 
or does not occur among allied genera. W. H. Datu 


SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 
In the first paper in the American Naturalist for May, Prof. C. 
F. Hartt opens out quite a new field for investigation in the 
rock-inscriptions of Brazil, and illustrates it with nine plates of 
very great interest. The inscriptions occur on the rocks in 
various districts, and are many of them very rude, representing 
human and other figures, the sun, moon, and stars, and others 
very difficult to decipher. Prof. Hartt mentions as a curious 
circumstance that the hands and feet are always represented by 
radiating lines, usually only three digits being drawn for each 
hand and foot ; the number rarely reaches four, and never five. 
This, he thinks may be explained by the fact that many tribes 
of Brazil are unable to count beyond three or four. The antiquity 
of these rock paintings and sculptures is undoubted, being men- 
tioned by many ancient writers, as well as by Humboldt and 
others in more recent times. There can be no doubt that they 
ante-date the civilisation of the Amazons, and there is a strong 
probability that some of them, at least, were drawn befove the 
European discovery of America. A short paper, by Dr. F. R. Hoy, 
on Dr. Koch’s Missourium tetracaulodon, made by Prof. Owen into 
a Mastodon, points out several particulars in which Dr. Koch’s 
account of the discovery of the fossil is not to be relied on, 
especially the inference of the great antiquity of man deduced 
from it. Mr. J. H. Emerton gives an account of the so-called 
‘* Flying Spiders,” which are merely blown about by the wind. 
Among the ‘‘ Miscellany” is an interesting note by Mr. A, 
Garrett, on the Distribution of Animals in the South Seas, es- 
pecially in the Viti Islands. The number is altogether one of 
unusual interest. 
Archiv fiir Anthropologie, 1870, Heft 3. An essay on 
“Theories of Sexual Generation,” by Prof. His, of Basel, is 
rather historical than speculative, tracing the two principal lines 
of opinion represented in early science by Hippocrates and 
Aristotle, as to the respective functions of the two parents, and 
the mode of transmission of their bodily characteristics to the 
offspring. Among modern writers Prof. His dwells especially on 
Harvey’s views. A paper by Dr. Welcker, ‘‘ On the compressed 
feet of Chinese ladies,” contains careful drawings, showing the shoe, 
the foot, and the abnormal position of the bones. As complete 
an account is given as the subject needs from an anatomical point 
of view. Dr. Jensen, occupied in studying the proportions of 
| the brain in the insane, arranges for this purpose, a ‘‘stereo- 
scopic-geometrical drawing apparatus,” by the aid of which to 
produce geometrical drawings on which measurements can be 
made. Dr. Schaafhausen’s dissertation on ‘‘ Cannibalism and 
Human Sacrifice,” is a valuable, though somewhat undigested 
contribution to the subject. Among the motives assigned for 
cannibalism, the principal are hunger, revenge, superstition, such 
as induces savages to devour a braye warrior to obtain his 
courage, and lastly, the gluttonous longing for a kind of flesh 
which is described as appetising. Human sacrifice may some- 
times be a relic of early cannibalism, an offering to deities who 
devour human flesh, or it may be an act of propitiation. There 
is evidence of the ancient or modern existence of cannibalism in 
most countries of the world, Great Britain being distinctly in- 
cluded. Even in modern times it occasionally breaks out in the 
civilised world, but on the whole its frequency among savages, 
and its general disappearance under improved social conditions, 
enable the writer, who argues in favour of a steady progression 
in the civilisation, to put it fairly into his argument, 
