^22 BULLETIN or THE 



tingiiished from that of man, but be points out that the measure- 

 meuts of Mr. Gulliver himself warrant the belief that the blood- 

 corpuscles of the rabbit aud guinea-pig, among domestic animals, 

 besides those of most of the monkeys of both the old and new 

 world, the seal, the otter, the kangaroo, the capybara, the wom- 

 bat, and the porpoise, belong to the same category. The paper 

 contains full references to the literature of the microscopical 

 diagnosis of blood-stains, and terminates with the following para- 

 graph : — 



" In conclusion, then, if the microscopist, summoned as a sci- 

 entific expert to examine a suspected blood-stain, should succeed 

 in soaking out the corpuscles in such a way as to enable him to 

 recognize them to be circular disks, and to measure them, and 

 should he then find their diameter comes within the limits pos- 

 sible for human blood, his duty in the present state of our knowl- 

 edge is clear. He must of course, in his evidence, present the 

 facts as actually observed, but it is not justifiable for him to stop 

 here. He has no right to conclude his testimony without making 

 it clearly understood by both judge and jury, that blood from the 

 dog and several other animals would give stains possessing the 

 same properties, and that neither by the microscope nor by any 

 other means yet known to science, can the expert determine that 

 a given stain is composed of human blood, and could not have 

 been derived from any other source. This course is imperatively 

 demanded of him by common honesty, without which scientific 

 experts become more dangerous to society than the very criminals 

 they are called upon to convict." 



Mr. Ormond Stone read a paper 



ON the correction of a comet's orbit : 



showing that some of the ordinary formulse could be simplified in 

 practice. 



l^This paper is published in full in the Astronomische Nachrichten, No. 2023.) 



Mr. Joseph Henry made a communication 



ON audition. 



Remarks were made by Messrs. Button, Hilgard, Meigs, 



and Eastman, chiefly on the sound produced by the discharge 



of gnns, and the regurgitation ; Mr. Woodward following with 



^a de-^r-rintinn of the horny fibres of the human ear, which vibrated 



at different sounds. 



