July C, 18Sa] 



SCIENCE. 



23 



In the present paper, Gosse describes and figures their 

 appearance in eleven species of Ornithoptera, and 

 fifty-six species of Papilio, including our own Tlioas 

 and Turnus. In one, P. SchmcHzi, he found a slight 

 asyniuielry in the armature of the two classes. 

 Gosse gives new names to nearly all the parts. The 

 side-plates, or flaps, which conceal the whole, he 

 terms, as usual, 'valves;' the inwardly projecting 

 armature of the interior of these, the 'harpes;' the 

 beak-like mesial prolongation of the eighth abdominal 

 segment, the 'uncus ;' the unpaired appendage lying 

 between it and the intromittent organ, tlie ' scaphium.' 

 He has done particular service in the care with which 

 he has reproduced the scaphium, — an organ consist- 

 ing, in the swallow-tails, of chitlnous points on a mem- 

 branous body, and therefore badly distorted in dried 

 specimens. This portion was studied and drawn after 

 it had been made to assume its natural fresh appear- 

 ance by absorbing a drop of water. The variety and 

 strangeness of form and armature assumed by these 

 parts, and particularly by the so-called scaphium and 

 harpes, is very remarkable. In his naming of these 

 parts anew, Gosse has burdened us with new terms 

 for orgatis which are abundantly named already ; but 

 they will, perhaps, have their advant.iges. if they do 

 not survive after homologues in other insects are 

 pointed out. In his remarks on these organs in 

 other butterflies, Gosse fails to see the homologies 

 which e.\lst, and which Burgess points out in part 

 in a paper which Gos.se appears not to have seen 

 (.^miir. mem. Bost. soc. nat. hist.), and Buchanan 

 White as well {Trans. Linn, soc, Zool., i. 35S). In 

 brief, it may be stated that the organs in butter- 

 flies consist, Ijesldes the intromittent organ, of 

 simply an unpaired upper organ, and paired lower 

 appendages ; both of which are attached, the upper 

 Immovably, to the ninth abdominal segment. The 

 upper organ usually takes the form of a hook, and the 

 lower, of claspers. In the Papillonides, however 

 (including in that both swallow-tails and pierlds), the 

 dorsum of the eiyhlh segment of the abdomen Is pro- 

 longed posteriorly into a terminal hook overlying and 

 concealing the true upper .appendage, and at first 

 readily mistaken for It, as shown in the swallow-tails 

 by White and in the pierlds by Burgess. Burgess 

 also shows that false claspers exist In Danals, dirter- 

 ing only from true claspers in not being articulated. 

 Bearing in mind the attachment of the different ex- 

 ternal organs ancillary to generation, their homolo- 

 gies throughout the insects are not difficult to trace. 



Buchanan White termed the ' upper organ ' of Scud- 

 der and Burgess the 'tegumen,' and their 'clasps,' 

 'harpagones.' The uncus of Gosse (which on rare 

 occasions Is wanting in some swallow-tails) is there- 

 fore no proper part of the ordinary organs ancillary 

 to generation, but a prolongation of the eighth abdom- 

 inal segment. The scaphium is the upper organ, or 

 the tegumen, of White ; the valves of Gosse. the 

 clasps of Scudder and Burgess or the harpagones of 

 While ; and the harpe, merely the armature of the 

 clasp, which is extremely varied and complex, not 

 only In the group where Gosse has so well illustrated 

 it, but also in many sklpi)ers : indeed, this bizarre form 



of armature, both of 'scaphium' and 'harpe,' is anew 

 indication of the alliance between the swallow-tails 

 aiul skippers. We may further remark, that, if the 

 old genus Papilio is the sooner broken up by the 

 additional help afforded by these new studies, (Josse 

 will have done systematists a real service. — ( Trans. 

 Linn. soc. Land., Zool., ii. 265.) s. II. s. [30 



VERTEBRATES. 



Chemistry and physiology of blood-serum. — 



In dogs which have been starved for a period of five 

 or six days, and which previous to the commence- 

 ment of the starvation had been fed for two or three 

 weeks on horse-flesh freed as far as possible from fat, 

 Burckhardt finds a diminution in the total amount 

 of protelds in the blood-serum, the loss v.arying from 

 4 % to IG % of the original amount of proleids present. 

 Of the two proteids of serum, the quantity of serum- 

 globulin increases during starvation, the increase 

 ranging in his experiments from 22.!<% to ()(i.4% of 

 the quantity present before starvation. Serum-albu- 

 men, on the other hand, suffers a marked diminu- 

 tion, from 5.3% to21.0(i% of the normal quantity. 

 A calculation of the probable loss of albumen from 

 the blood and lymph on the basis of his experiments, 

 when compared with the amount of urea e.xcreted 

 by dogs, according to Voit, in the first five days of 

 starvation, shows that the quantity of albumen lost 

 from the circulating liquids is much too small to 

 account for the proteid destruction indicated by the 

 urea. Burckhardt made use of dialysis chiefly in 

 determining the quantity of serum-globulin present 

 in serum. The seruui-albuuien was estimated as the 

 difference between the total proteids and the serum- 

 globulin. He states that Hammarsten's method of 

 obtaining serum-globullu by means of MgfSOi is not 

 reliable. Complete saturation with MgSO, throws 

 down not only the serum-globulin, but also a large 

 amoimt of proteid, which resembles serum-albumen, 

 as usually understood. In every respect except in its 

 precipitation by Mg.JSO,. — [Arch, exper. path, phar- 

 mafc., xvi. 322.) w. ii. H. [31 



Double staining blood-corpuscles. — Dr. Vin- 

 cent Harris has made a series of systematic ex- 

 periments on double staining of nucleated blood 

 corpuscles with aniline dyes, and gives in connection 

 therewith a table of the aniline dyes, and their solu- 

 bility in water and alcohol. A little blood was dried 

 rapidly in a thin layer on a slide, and treated with 

 two dyes in succession. The only entirely successful 

 combinations were the following: rosein and aniline 

 green, fuchsin and methylen blue, fuchsin and Bis- 

 marck brown, eosin and resuvin, iodine green and 

 Bismarck brown, Hoffman's violet and Bismarck 

 brown, aniline violet aiul methylen blue. The 

 greens were not at all permanent. The results were 

 often variable and uncertain. For success the solu- 

 tions must be quite fresh. The time each dye is al- 

 lowed to remain greatly affects the results. — {Quart. 

 joiirn. ?;((■()-. sc, 1SS3, 2'.)2.) f. s. M. [32 



The primitive mouth of vertebrates. — Accord- 

 ing to Kauber, the gastrula mouth (original blastopore 



