24 MR. H. N. MOSELEY ON SOME CORALS. [JaU. 20, 



round tlie male Elej)hant's legs ; but on each occasion he snapped 

 them like so much thread, but did not attempt to leave the place 

 until the 8th January 1864'. On that date v/e got a very stout 

 rope fastened round his hind legs, and although he succeeded in 

 snapping it as he had done the others, he began to think he was in 

 danger, and made off for the jungles. He covered the four females 

 on several occasions between the 18th December 1863 and the day 

 on which he bolted (the 8th January, 1864). The female (Roweil 

 Kutlee) calved on the 3rd of August 1865, which gives nineteen 

 months as the period of gestation. 



I very carefully watched these Elephants (knowing them to have 

 been covered), and for the first twelve months saw no such increase 

 of size or alteration of shape as would indicate pregnancy ; but in the 

 thirteenth month, 18th January 1865, Serjeant Heron reported to me 

 that two of the Elephants had milk in their breasts, and requested 

 that I would go and see them, as the Mahouts thought they must 

 be going to calve soon. I went and saw the Maho\its draw milk 

 from the two Elephants ; and this was the first reason we had to 

 think they were pregnant ; but it seems to me to be extraordinary 

 and worthy of remark that the secretion of milk should have com- 

 menced so many as seven months prior to calving. 



The second case took place at Bellary, in India, and was under the 

 observation of Col. Ostrichsen, when the period of gestation was 

 noted to be the same, viz. nineteen months. 



Mr. H. N. Moseley, F.R.S., exhibited some specimens of sections 

 of Corals received from Dr. G . von Koch of Darmstadt, and prepared 

 by a method devised by him, and made the following remarks con- 

 cerning them and the results attained by them : — 



"There has always been great difficulty in determining under the 

 microscope the exact relation of the various components in the cases of 

 animal structures which are composed j)artly of hard and partly of 

 soft tissues. We can easily prepare fine sections of the hard structures 

 alone by grinding, and we can also, in all cases where these structures 

 are rendered liard by carbonate of lime, decalcify the tissues with acids, 

 and, thus having removed the hard parts, prepare sections with a 

 razor of the soft tissue alone ; but we have not hitherto been able to 

 obtain sections in which both hard and soft structures are preserved 

 together in situ. The want of some method which should enable 

 such sections as these latter to be made is most strongly felt by any 

 one who is engaged in the investigation of the anatomy of corals. 

 Corals are so completely penetrated by an extremely hard calcareous 

 skeleton that it has hitherto been impossible to obtain sections in 

 which the exact relation of the soft tissues to the skeleton could be 

 made out. Dr. von Koch, who has devoted himself for some years 

 past to the study of coral-structures, has succeeded in devising a 

 method which, though somewhat laborious and tedious, yields exactly 

 what was desired. 



" His method was first described in 1874, in a dissertation on the 

 anatomy of the Organ Coral {Tnbipora hcmjmchii), published at 



