468 SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY NOTES. 



these cases the young sheep were attacked by staggers about the fifteenth day — 

 the ouly diffeience being that, at Copenhagen, only two out of three sheep 

 were afl'ected. The failure of the French experimentalists is ascribed by M. Van 

 Beneden to their having administered ova of Twuia serrata instead of those of 

 7\ icBiiurns. 



" M. Van Beneden also communicates to the Academy the results of an ex- 

 periment just completed by M. Leuckart. 



" For some years a second species of Taenia the T. mediocanellato, has been 

 indicated in the subject, but its mode of introduction and the characters of its 

 Cystictrcus were unknown. M. Leuckart has administered ova of Tcenia medio- 

 caiiellala to calves, and in a short time found a development of Cyslicerci, 

 especially in the muscles, so abundant as to cause a sort of leprosy. The 

 Cynt'cervua, while still in the cysts of the calf, presents all the distinctive 

 characters of the adult Tcenia. Thus Tape-worm is developed by the use of 

 veal and beef ; but it is a distinct species, which has always been, confounded 

 with 2'oenia solium. In the present state of science, it may be asserted that 

 Tcenia solium is introduced into the human body by pork ; T. mediocanellata by 

 veal and beef; and the Bothrioccplialus, or Broad Tape-worm of the older 

 writers (in Switzerland, Poland, and Russia), by water.* 



" At the Meeting of the Academy of Sciences on the 1 6th of June, MM. Ponchet 

 and Verrier replied to Prof. Van Beneden's remarks, asserting that they have 

 not committed the error ascribed to them by him, as, if his Tania ccenurus be 

 really a distinct species, of which they express great doubts, it was this that 

 they administered to their young sheep. They add that in a recent experiment, 

 in which each of two dogs received a hundred heads of Ccenurus cerebralis, the 

 examination of the intestines two months after the administration showed in 

 one dog two specimens of Tcenia cucumerioia, 50 centimetres in length, and 

 filled with ova, and in the other, two of T. Serrata, one 12 millimetres and the 

 other 20 centimetres in length. — Comptes Hendus, June 2 and 16, pp. 1157 and 

 1207. 



SPONGIAD^. 



We perceive that Dr. Bowerbank has recently laid before the Royal Society 

 his third paper •' On the Anatomy and Physiology of the Spongiadae." The 

 scientific world has long looked to him for information on this curious and in- 

 teresting, but hitherto neglected, branch of Natural History, upon which both 

 his extensive collections (accumulated during many years} and his skill as a 

 microscopic observer qualify him to throw new light, and which has been long 

 known to have engaged his special attention. We are now at length made 

 acquainted with his general views, and we are led to expect details respecting 

 genera and species, in a promised work to be brought out by the Ray Society. 



Dr. Bowerbat k, rightly we think, prefers for the Sponges the name Porifera, 

 introduced by Dr. Grant to De Blainville's name Amorphozoa. Porifera, with 



" * Dr. Ko(5h, of St, Petersburg, has lately stated that the embryos of Bothriocephahis 

 ^atus are covered with vibratile cilia, and that, in the form of Infusoria, they live fi ee in the 

 water. He adds this interesting remark, that in Moscow, where spring water is drunk, the 

 Bothrioeephalus is rare ; whilst at St. Petersburg, Riga, and Dorpat, where river-water ia 

 used, it is very common." 



