278 



NA TURE 



\yuly 12, 1880 



canal of the horse, Mr. Krabbe examined, daring the last four 

 years, the bodies of one hundred horses which were brouglit for 

 anatomical purposes to the Veterinary College at Copenhagen, 

 between the months of September and April in each ses.-ion. 

 In these liorses he found Tictiia perfoliata, 28 time? ; T. maiit'd- 

 laihi, S times; Ascaiis imgalocephala, 16 times; Stron:iylHS 

 armatiis. 86 times ; .S'. /etracanthus, 78 times (in 67 horses cut 

 of S6) ; and OxyH7-is ciirvtila, t«ice. Of T. pirfoliata tlie 

 number found was mostly less than 25 ; sometimes it was over, 

 and twice between 100 and 200 were found, while once no less 

 than 400 were met with. In general they were lodged in the 

 cn^cum. T. 7>taj)iil!aua of Mehlis, a species overlooked by Pu- 

 jardin and most French writers on the subject, was described 

 and figured by Gurlt in 1831 ; generally less than 25, but some- 

 times up to 72, were met with, mostly in the anterior part of the 

 small intestines (T. plicata, R., was never met with). The 

 Ascaris never occurred in larger numbers than ii. ^. armaliis 

 was never met with in the small intestine ; in the caecum it was 

 common ; much less so in the first portion of tlie colon, where veiy 

 fine specimens of a dark bluish red colour were found ; generally 

 the number met with was below 25, but once nearly 200 Mere 

 found. Of 1,409 samples, 1,029 were females and 3S0 males. 

 S, tetracanthus was found in the crecum and throughout the 

 colon. The literature of this subject would appear to be very 

 scanty, and the author hopes that the attention of veterinary 

 surgeons in other parts of the world may be attracted to this 

 subject. Ample opportunities of following it up exist in British 

 India, America, and the Cape of Good Hope district. 



The Domestication of Deer. — A very interesting con-e- 

 spondence is published in the American Naturalist for June 

 between Mr. Brown, the superintendent of the Philadelphia 

 Zoological Gardens, and Mr. J. D. Caton. It relates chiefly to 

 the question of the domestication of species of deer. Of the 

 twelve species kept in the Philadelphia Gardens the mule deer 

 (Cervus macrotis) have bred during 1S7S and 1S79 ; of five 

 fawns one died when two days old ; the other four, though most 

 carefully nursed and fed with astringent food, as well as supplied 

 with iron water and gentian powders, &c., all died of a diarrhcca 

 caused by malignant disease. Five specimens of moose-deer and 

 eight of cariljou died at periods varying from three months to 

 two years and five months in the moose and not beyond nine 

 months in the caribou from hypertrophy of the heart. The 

 pronghorn [A. americainf) all died speedily from diarrhoea or 

 hypertrophy of the heart ; change of food and tonics seemed to 

 have no effect upon them. Of ten or twelve individuals none 

 lived more than fifteen months. The wapiti and common deer 

 (C virginianus), however, have done well, and several fawns 

 were raised of C. campestris, C. aristoldis, and C. dama. Of C. 

 kucurtis the Gardens possessed but a single specimen. In the 

 case of the mule deer Mr. Brown is disposed to account for tlie 

 mortality by the difficulty of supplying them with a sufficient 

 amount of their proper (arboreal) food, which has to be replaced 

 by dry food and grass. Mr. Caton, writing from Ottawa, Illi- 

 nois, states that he had lost the last of his stock of mule deer and 

 also of C. Columbia mis, and that he is satisfied that they cannot 

 be successfully domciticated in his grounds. He concludes that 

 they get at something which does not agree with them ; indeed 

 all his experimen's with ruminants, fcra natura: whose natural 

 habitat is confined to the United States west of the Missouri 

 River, have proved failures. Mr. Caton has succeeded well in 

 hybridising the Virginian deer with the Ceylon deer and the 

 Acapulco deer. The hybrids seem to be perfectly healthy and 

 prolific, several of the hybrids from the Virginian deer and 

 Acapulco buck having borne perfectly healthy twin fawns. On 

 some cf the hybrids the metatarsal gland is wanting, and on some 

 it is present, while some have it on one hind leg and not on the 

 other. 



The Fiddler Crabs.— Mr. J. S. Kingslej', in a further 

 contribution to the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural 

 Sciences of Philadelphia, revises the genus Gclasiinus, and as a 

 result he makes a great reduction in the number of species. This 

 has been done, not with any desire to overturn the work of others, 

 but as the result of a study of the forms known all over the 

 world. The range of many species is greatly extended. He refers 

 the genus to the family Macrophthalmida; of Dana ; and it is 

 characterised by its rhomboidal carapace, broad in front, 

 elongated eye-stalks, and a great inequality of the chelipeds or 

 nipping feet of the male. The latter is the most constant cha- 

 racter of value. The species fall into two groups according as 



the front between the eyes is very narrow or wide ; and the 

 latter have males with a five-jointed or seven-jointed abdomen. 



Organs of Deei>-Sea Animals. — During his researches On 

 the fauna of the Caspian Sea, M. O. Grimm has studied the 

 modifications which are undergone by the organs of sense in 

 animals which inhabit great depths. Among them several have 

 well-developed organs of sight, which seems to prove that even 

 at very great depths light is not completely absorbed. Such are 

 the Caspian Mysis, the Gammaracanthus caspius, several Backicr, 

 and others, but on the contrary, there are at the same depths 

 many species whose eyes are quite atrophied, and in these species 

 we observe that other organs of sense receive a greater develop- 

 ment. Such is the case in .Vipharous and Oncsimus. But, whilst 

 A'///5a>-_f/M c«,r/n(i bears well-developed organs of smell and of 

 touch on its antenna;, in Oncsimus, which, as well as the former, 

 has but rudimentary eyes, only organs of touch are to be found 

 on its jaws. M. Grimm explains this last difference by the cir- 

 cumstance that the former species usually remains in water, 

 whilst Ou'simus likes to remain in the mud at the bottom, where 

 it searches for its food very much like a mole. 



CHEMICAL NOTES 



In the Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. ii. , 

 Mr. P. Collier describes a new mineral from the Champlain 

 iron region, which resembles thorite in its physical properties, 

 but differs therefrom in containing a relatively large quantity ct 

 uranium. Analysis showed 9'96 per cent, of uranic oxide, and 

 S2'07 per cent, of thoric oxide, with I9'38 per cent, of silica, the 

 remainder consisting of oxides of lead, aluminium, iron, calcium, 

 magnesium, and sodium, with moisture and combined water. 



Mr. Collier gives an account, in the same journal, of expe- 

 riments he has made, which reem to point to a new possible 

 source of crystallisable sugar. He finds that the juice of various 

 varieties of fully ripe sorgluims contains from 13 to 15 per cent, 

 of sucrose, with i or 2 per cent, of glucose. 



Special attention has been recently given to the liquids 

 included in the microscopical pores of certain minerals, and 

 it has been shown by Zimmler that these pores contain 

 not only water, but also sometimes carbonic acid. Prof. Kar- 

 pinsky publishes now in the Memoirs of the St. Petersburg 

 Society of Naturalists the results of his experiments on the 

 liquid contained in the pores of the Uralian amethyst. The 

 mineral having been brolcen in a tube filled with mercury, the fluid 

 immediately evaporated, and being brought in contact with a 

 solution of oxide of barium, proved to be carbonic acid (ro7 

 cubic millimetres at 30°). The pressure under which the 

 carbonic acid was liquefied may be estimated as seventy-three 

 atmospheres, which would correspond to a pressure of a column 

 of water 2,336 feet high. 



At the meeting of the French Academy of May 17, 24, an.1 

 31, notes were read by MM. Ditte and Berthelot, on the cold 

 produced by the action of acids on hydrated salts, e.g., hydro- 

 chloric acid on hydrated sodium sulphate. The action is 

 regarded as complex : an exothermal chemical reaction occurs 

 in accordance with Berthelot's "law of maximum work," but 

 unless the products of this action are totally insoluble, secondary 

 changes take place ; these charges are chiefly conditioned \y 

 the amount of heat evolved in the primary action. In the 

 special cases in question the heat disengaged in the chemical 

 charge is less than the heat absorbed in the liquefaction of the 

 water of crystallisation which separates from the hydrated salt, 

 hence the sum of the heat changes is negative. 



The densities of chlorine, bromine, and iodine at high tem- 

 peratures cannot yet be regarded as determined. Victor Meyer, 

 in a recent paper in the Berliner Berichte, admits the justice of 

 Crafts' criticism of his determinations of temperature (see 

 Nature, vol. xxi. p. 561, letter by Dr. Armstrong) ; his late.-t 

 results give for iodine at about 1,050°, a density equal to |I.;, 

 and at an extremely high temperature (exact numbers not yet 

 given), a density of 4'55, which nearly correspords with that 

 calculated on the supposition that at this temperature the iodme 

 molecules are entirely dissociated into atoms (calculated number 

 = 4'39)- Meyer and Crafts, working by Dumas' method, and 

 using an iodine thermometer, find the density at 1,468° to be 

 5-05 (calculated for |I„, 5-83 ; for I, 4-39). The density for 

 free chlorine seems to be'normal (CU), even at extremely high tem- 

 peratm-es ; but if the clilorine be produced in the vapour-density 



