190 MEMOIRS OF THE CARNEGIE MUSEUM 
mission of the publisher) in the accompanying figure. If this illustration correctly 
represents the actual habitation of the animal, it must at once be admitted that 
Steneofiber, which I think is responsible for Demonelix, has an able competitor in 
underground engineering in our recent mole. 
It cannot be denied that certain features of Demonelix, for instance the straight 
vertical axis inside of the spiral, are not easily explained, and that we have not yet 
arrived at a complete understanding of all the details connected with these struc- 
tures; but it is very likely that these difficulties will be removed, when we know 
more of the underground habitations of fossorial animals. 
The following notes are observations by Mr. O. E. Jennings, custodian in the 
Department of Botany, kindly submitted to the writer for publication in connection 
with this paper. 
NOTES ON THE VEGETABLE TISSUES IN DAIMONELIX. 
An examination of thirty-two microscopical sections obtained from various parts 
of the so-called devil’s corkscrews (Demonelix), in the collections of the Carnegie 
Museum, invariably revealed the fossilized remains of vegetable tissue. Although 
the sections had been cut from many different places in the Demonelia specimens, 
the vegetable tissues were usually more abundant in those sections obtained near 
the surface of the specimens, and the tissues in these sections gave better results under 
the microscope. ‘The sections best showing the cellular structure and the differentia- 
tion of tissues were longitudinal sections cut parallel to the surface of the so-called 
corkscrews. <A careful study of the slides involved the examination of a large num- 
ber of tissue fragments, as in some of the slides, at least one fourth of the total area 
of the section was occupied by plant remains. 
The vegetable tissues are apparently simply the remains of a mesh of roots such 
as is sometimes found clogging a tile drain or sewer. The tissues were most com- 
monly found in the form of hollow tubes, such as would be obtained by sectioning 
rubber tubing at various angles. The central portion of the root has, in most cases, 
disappeared leaving only the outer tissues—the epidermis and the cortex. The 
root cap was searched for in vain, although root-hairs were rather common. 
The reason, that the thin epidermal covering and the rather large thin-walled 
cells of the cortical tissue should be the best preserved, may be, that these parts of a 
living root soon become more or less impervious to water. That portion of a living 
root just back of the tip is the most absorptive. In the older portions farther back | 
the epidermis may have become cutinized, or the cortex may have become suberized, 
or both ; in either event the tissue thus becomes impervious to both water and gases. 
