Makch 13, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



417 



As an elementary treatise suitable for students 

 of tender years this work presents the English 

 practice in a general way with sufficient thor- 

 oughness to afford a popular understanding of 

 the subject. 



American practice is so lamentably weak that 

 the work is of little practical value to our stu- 

 dents. With extensive cutting and the addition 

 of much new material it might be transformed 

 into a work of value, but, as Kipling would say, 

 "that is another story." 



J. Steuthees. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON, 256TH 

 MEETING, FEBEUAEY 22. 



C. Haet Meeeiam spoke of The American 

 Weasels, describing at some length the various 

 species, their habitats and relationships. 



F. E. L. Beal read a paper on the Food of the 

 Bluejay, being the results of the examination of 

 about 300 stomachs of this species collected in 

 every month of the year and fairly representing 

 all parts of the bird's range. The food is found 

 to consist of animal and vegetable matter in the 

 proportion of about one of the former to three 

 of the latter. The animal matter is composed 

 largely of injurious insects. The alleged habits 

 of the jay of eating the eggs and young of other 

 birds is only partially confirmed. Of the whole 

 number of stomachs only two, taken in the 

 breeding season, contained shells of eggs and 

 one the remains of a young bird. One stomach 

 taken in February contained the remains of a 

 bird, and several taken at various times con- 

 tained shells of eggs, apparently those of do- 

 mestic fowls. The vegetable food consists 

 principally of grain, mast and fruit. Of the 

 first two mast is the favorite, being the most 

 important element of the yearly diet. Corn is 

 the favorite grain. The fruit consists for the 

 most part of wild species. 



David White discussed the Structure and Re- 

 lations of Buthograptus, Plumulina and Ptilophy- 

 ton from the North American Palseozio. After 

 describing the structure of these genera in detail, 

 the speaker stated that it would seem that all 

 the forms considered may belong to one type of 

 nonvascular, feather-like, or plumose organisms, 



which consist of a hollow or cellular thin- 

 walled rachis, or axis, destitute of any central 

 strand, forking but seldom in some species, 

 perhaps in all, and possibly divided by trans- 

 verse septa into cells, though this is not clearly 

 shown in any individual case. To this axis are 

 articulated by round or oval joints, two or more 

 series of more or less elongate, very thin- walled, 

 bladder-like sacs, which, for convenience, are 

 called pinnules. With rare exceptions, these 

 sacs are quite regularly arranged with re- 

 spect to one another, their parallelism in the 

 impressions giving the feathery appearance to 

 the pinnsB. Similar relations obtain in all the 

 species considered. The pinnules appear to 

 have been eventually deciduous, falling away 

 from the lower portion of the rachis. Although 

 several of the species appear at first glance to 

 very strongly resemble hydroids, the speaker 

 followed Dawson and Lesquereaux in consider- 

 ing these organisms to be vegetable in their 

 nature. 



Sylvester D. Judd described a Peculiar Eye 

 of an Amphipod Crustacean, Byblis serrata. 

 He said that this crustacean, which belongs to 

 the family Gammaridse, has totally different 

 eyes from Gammarus. This peculiar eye of 

 Byblis reminds one of the vertebrate eye, for 

 both agree in having a biconvex lens and a 

 fluid filled space with the retina below. A sec- 

 tion through the chief axes of the eye of Byblis 

 would first show a large lens, which has been 

 secreted in concentric shells by a thickened 

 layer of lentigen, which is on either side con- 

 tinuous with the thinner hypodermis, which is 

 gorged with scarlet pigment that envelopes the 

 eye like a cornucopia, thus shutting out all rays 

 that might reach the retina without first passing 

 through the lens. Under the lentigen is a cres- 

 cent-shaped humor space. Below and proximal 

 to this space is a layer of columnar cells, which 

 is continuous on either side with the hypoder- 

 mis. This layer of cells has secreted on its 

 outer boundary, which borders on the space, a 

 strong cuticula. Just proximal to this layer of 

 cells, which has secreted the cuticula, are the 

 omatidia (which of course lack the corneal cuti- 

 cula). The most distal element of an oma- 

 tidium is a granular columnar body (cell pro- 

 duct). Below and proximal to this columnar 



