260 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. I., No. 



eral of their reports have appeared. The last is tliat 

 of H. Friele on the molhislvS, including those belong- 

 ing to the Buccinidae. It is printed in parallel col- 

 umns of Norwegian and English, and illustrated by- 

 sis quarto plates and a map. The paper is practically 

 a monograph of the Buccinidae of the arctic part 

 of the north Atlantic and its shores. The new genus 

 Jumala is described for Fusus Turtoni Bean and 

 Neptunea Ossiaui Friele. It is founded on important 

 differences in the dentition. Several species, which 

 had been before but briefly described, are here figured 

 and characterized in detail. Siphonorbis Dalli, S. un- 

 dulata, Buccinum nivale, B.. sulcatum, new species, 

 and a large number of new varieties, are described, 



— not merely the shell, but, in a majority of cases, 

 the embryo, obtheca, operculum, and dentition, with 

 various anatomical and biographical details. Friele 

 finds, like others who have studied large series, that 

 species, in the old-fashioned sense, can hardly be said 

 to exist in the genus Buccinum; and, indeed, Neptu- 

 nea is not much better ; but the author considers that 

 a certain part of this confusion is caused by hybridi- 

 zation. — w. H. D. [563 



Worms. 



North-sea annelids. — G. A. Hansen, in Norwe- 

 gian and English (in parallel columns), gives an ac- 

 count of the annelids collected by the Norwegian 

 North-sea expedition of 1876-78 (Christiania, 1882, 

 53 p., 7 pi., map, 4°). He criticises Malragren's 

 method of distinguishing and delimiting genera, of 

 which he thinks Malmgren has made far too many on 

 unimportant characters. He points out the constancy 

 of the bristles: " The type of the bristles is the same 

 in all Polynoae, with the exception of Melaenis Loveni 

 and Polynoe scolopendrina." The scales, in Hanson's 

 opinion, are much more valuable, being characteris- 

 tically constant in each species. Mobius and Tauber 

 have gone too far in the opposite direction, of 'lump- 

 ing' Malmgren's species and genera. Tables of dis- 

 tribution are given, from which it is evident that few 

 families are absent from the frigid area, and the spe-. 

 cies are the same as those found in temperate waters. 

 P. globifera alone indicates that its favorite, if not 

 its sole, habitat is the cold bottom-strata. A number 

 of new species are described. — (Journ. inter, soc. 

 Lond., Feb., 1SS3, 60.) c. s. m. [564 



Australian Aphroditea. — TV. A. Haswell pub- 

 lishes a monograph of the Australian species of this 

 annelidan family, wherein he gives descriptions of 

 about thirty species, of which more than half are new. 

 There appear to be two entirely distinct provinces 

 of distribution, — the northern, intertropical shores 

 of Queensland, and the temperate coasts of New 

 South Wales and Victoria. As compared with the 

 same group in northern seas, there is no marked dis- 

 tinction of the forms : the species are different, but 

 the genera the same or nearly related. The first part 

 of the paper is anatomical, and contains interesting 

 notes on the structure of the scales. He corrects 

 Williams's mistake of describing the intestinal coeca 

 as segmental organs, — a mistake repeated by Ehlers, 



— and himself describes the true segmental organs in 

 Polynoe. They are ciliated tubes, opening in a tuber- 

 cle at the base of the parapodia. Some observations 

 on the sexual organs, the coeca of the intestine, and 

 the pseudhaemal system, are also recorded. The form 

 of the coeca isdesci'ibed. "The interior of thecoecum 

 is lined here and there with 'hepatic cells.' These 

 are large spherical or oval cells, with a delicate . . . 

 membrane, and golden-yellow, oil-like contents, with 

 a nucleus, or, more frequently, two or three." Among 

 these yellow cells are otheis of the same size, but of 

 very diiferent character, containing numerous cells, 



each enclosing a spherical green body. Haswell 

 thinks these are the young stages of the yellow 

 cells. — (Proc. Linn. soc. New South Wales, vii. 2.50.) 

 c. s. M. [565 



Anatomy of Cteaodrilus. — Kennel's valuable 

 monograph of the anatomy of Ctenodrilus is to be sup- 

 plemented by a memoir on another species of the same 

 genus (C. monostylos) by Zeppelin, who has published 

 a preliminary notice of his results. An abstract will 

 be given here of the final memoir when published. 

 {Zool. anz., vi. 44.) c. s. M. [566 



VERTEBRATES. 

 Third corpuscle of the blood. — Dr. Klchard 



Norris of Birmingham, Eng., claims to have discov- 

 ered that the white corpuscles of the lymph peel off 

 the body of the cell, setting the nucleus free. The 

 latter then enters the circulation as a colorless disk, 

 which is ordinarily invisible, having the same refrac- 

 tile index as the liquor sanguinis. The disk gradually 

 becomes colored by the endogenous secretion of 

 haemaglobin. He then applies this history to set 

 aside a good many established views concerning the 

 physiology and pathology of the blood. He has pre- 

 sented his opinions in an octavo volume illustrated 

 with numerous plates, forming a revolutionary publi- 

 cation (London, 1882). We should a prtoj'j give little 

 credence to these surprising conclusions, which have 

 been subjected to telling criticisms by Mrs. Ernest 

 Hart. Norris's principal observation was, that, by cer- 

 tain methods of treatment, colorless disks could be 

 found in the blood, and photographed. Mrs. Hart 

 has repeated his numerous and varied experiments, 

 and shows that the methods employed create the 

 colorless disk out of the red corpuscle by removing, 

 in one manner or another, the haemaglobin. The 

 basis of Norris's theories is thus taken away, and 

 with the base fall all the far-reaching deductions 

 built on it. Nevertheless, although Dr. Norris's inter- 

 pretations cannot be accepted, it should be remem- 

 bered that he has published a series of careful and 

 useful observations. — ( Lond. med. rec. , Oct. 15, 1SS2. ) 

 c. s. M. [567 



Nerves of the bile-ducts. — Variot has confirmed 

 and extended Gerlach's observations {Centralbl. 

 med. wiss., xxxvi). The author first gives a brief 

 account of the structure of the bile-ducts and gall- 

 bladder. The nerve-fibres on the ducts are rarely 

 meduUated. In gold-chloride preparations one sees 

 the large meshes of the submucous nervous plexus 

 of naked fibres. The ganglion-cells lie mostly in the 

 nodes of the plexus, but are also found elsewhere be- 

 tween the fibres ; now and then they are clustered into 

 a little ganglion. A second intermuscular plexus, 

 such as Gerlach described, could not be observed. 

 Nothing was learned of the ultimate terminations. 

 The distribution of the ganglia was studied in longi- 

 tudinal sections through Vater's ampulla and tlie 

 neighboring part of the ductus choledocus. At the 

 point of junction is found an extension of Auerbach's 

 plexus. Between the two muscular layers lie the 

 ganglia; but nothing corresponding to Meissner's 

 plexus was found; although, at the junction of the 

 intestinal and ductal mucosa, there is a mass of 

 ganglia. The observations were made on man, dogs, 

 and cobayas. — • {Journ. de Vanat. physiol., xviii. 600.) 

 c. s. M. [568 



Salivary alkaloids. — Gautier found in normal 

 human saliva an alkaloid-like non-nitrogenous sub- 

 stance, forming a crystallizable compound with chlo- 

 ride of gold and platinum. In its physiological actions 

 this alkaloid resembled the post-mortem alkaloids 

 (lytomdines) : injected into animals, it acted like snake- 



