December 21, 188;!.] 



SCIENCE. 



803 



men is then allowed to remain in absolute alcohol 

 until the water is perfectly extracted, when it is 

 placed in turpentine for three or four days. It may 

 then be dried and mounted. Specimens prepared in 

 this way retain their characters in a very satisfactory 

 degree, and are strong and flexible, the examples shown 

 resembling kid. If the surface be treated, after dry- 

 ing, with a solution of sugar and glycerine, the natural 

 colors will be restored ; but the specimens must then 

 be kept in hermetically sealed glass cases to preserve 

 them from the dust. The objection to this mode of 

 treating large specimens is the expense of the abso- 

 lute alcohol : otherwise there is no reason why the 

 largest animals should not be preserved by this pro- 

 cess. — {Acad. nat. ac. Philad.; meeting Nov. 21, 

 1883. ) [522 



Preservation of protozoa and small larvae. 

 — Hermann Fol recommends an alcoholic solution 

 of ferric perchloride to kill small animals without 

 injury to the tissues. It is diluted with water down 

 to two per cent, and then poured into the vessel 

 holding the animals. These then sink to the bottom. 

 The water is poured off, and seventy per cent alcohol 

 substituted. Change the alcohol, and add to the sec- 

 ond dose of it a few drops of sulphuric acid: other- 

 wise the iron may remain in the tissues, and cause 

 them to overstain with coloring-reagents. The alco- 

 holic washing should be thorough. Even larger 

 animals (medusae, Doliolura, etc.) may be perfectly 

 preserved by this method. The tissues may be sub- 

 sequently stained by adding a few drops of gallic acid 

 (one-per-cent solution) to the alcohol containing the 

 specimens. The nuclei are stained dark, the proto- 

 plasm light brown, in twenty-four hours. 



Fol also describes some new injection masses, 

 which offer the advantage that they may be read- 

 ily kept without spoiling. — {Zeitsckr. wiss. zool.. 

 xxxviii. 491.) c. s. M. [523 



Fossils of Pachino. — The Marquis de Gregorio 

 has published a brochure of twenty-five pages on the 

 fossils of this locality. They comprise cretaceous 

 forms of the horizon of Hippurites cornucopiae, and 

 tertiary species of the horizon of Carcharodon mega- 

 lodon Ag. The work is in octavo, and illustrated by 

 six excellent phototypic plates representing corals, 

 echinoderms, and a few moUusks. SirapiUorbites, a 

 new genus of Foramlnifera allied to Orbitolites; 

 Escharopsia, a new genus of Polyzoa; and Proteo- 

 buUa, a form represented by casts, recalling Buc- 

 cinulus, but with throe strong horizontal plaits on the 

 column, — .ire described and figured. — w. h. i>. [524 



Uollnsks. 



Spicula amoris of British Helices. — Charles 

 Ashford contributes an interesting and comprehen- 

 sive paper on the 'darts' found in connection with 

 the reproductive apparatus in certain Helices. The 

 dart is contained in a short ventricose pouch opening 

 into the lower part of the vaginal tube, a little above 

 the common vestibule, on the right side of the neck. 

 There is tisually one : if two are present, the second 

 sac is on the opposite side of the tube from the first. 

 The sac may he simple, or bilobate. At the bottom 



of the cavity of the sac is a conical papilla, which 

 serves as a basis for the dart, which is attached to it 

 by its posterior end. The apparatus is a development 

 of adult life, and especially of pairing-time, but Is 

 indifferently present or wanting in species otherwise 

 closely allied. The dart itself is a tubular shaft of 

 carbonate of lime, tapering to a solid, transparent, 

 sharp point, enlarging at or toward the base, where it 

 assumes the form of a subconical cup. The sides of 

 the shaft are sometimes furnished with blade-like 

 longitudinal buttresses, which serve to strengthen it. 

 They are rapidly formed, may be secreted in six days, 

 and differ in form in different species. They are sup- 

 posed to serve the purpose of inducing, by puncture, 

 the excitement preparatory to pairing. They are too 

 fragile to do more than prick the tough skin of these 

 moUusks, but sometimes penetrate the apertures of 

 the body, and are found within. A new weapon is 

 formed after the loss of the old one. It is best ex- 

 tracted for study by boiling the sac in caustic potash. 

 — {Journ. conch., July, 1SS.3.) w. h. d. [525 



Shell-structure of Chonetes. — John Young, In 

 the course of an examination of C. Laguessiana Kon., 

 finds on the ribs a series of wide-set tubular openings, 

 perhaps bases of spines, which do not extend to the 

 interior of the shell; also a row of very minute 

 close-set pores, placed along the central line of each 

 rib, but which disappear after descending a very 

 short distance into the shell-substance ; a series of 

 raised tubercles, which appear on the interior surface 

 of the valves arranged between each pair of ribs in 

 single rows, and which send rather distant tubules 

 obliquely outward and backward as far as the middle 

 layer of the shell; lastly, in the thickened cardinal 

 edge of the ventral valve, corresponding to the spines 

 with which it is ornamented, a series of tubes which 

 open with round orifices on the interior, and which 

 converge toward a point near the apex of the beak, 

 but at the surface are continuous with the hollow of 

 the tubular spines which point away from the beak 

 in a direction nearly at right angles with their pre- 

 vious course. In a note on this communication, 

 Mr. Thomas Davidson mentions that in Chonetes 

 plebeia, tenuicostata, sarcinulata, and the Devonian 

 C. armata, Mr. Young finds no trace of the external 

 perforations described above in C. Laguessiana, al- 

 though small perforations ortub%les extended nearly 

 to the middle shell-layer from the interior of the 

 valves, slanting toward the beaks. In Productus 

 (with a doubtful exception in the case of P. mesolo- 

 bus), also, Mr. Young finds the perforations extend- 

 ing only part way from the interior, and never visibI6 

 on the unabraded external surface of th'e shell. The 

 same fact has been determined by him for the genera 

 Strophomena and Streptorhynchus. — {Geol. mag,, 

 Aug., 1883.) w. M. D. [526 



VERTEBRATES. 

 Mammals. 

 Aortic InsufBciency and arterial pressure. — 

 Both Rosenbach and Cohnhcim have stated that sud- 

 den insufficiency of the aortic valves, produced arti- 

 ficially, has no effect on arterial pressure. Goddard, 



