1865.] Zoology and Animal Physiology. 139 



servations are correct, this so-called circulation in the Vorticellida} 

 does not exist. 



At the meeting of the German Association of Naturalists and Phy- 

 sicians, lately held at Giessen, Professor Schaffhansen, of Bonn, gave 

 a lecture on Spontaneous Generation. To him spontaneous genera- 

 tion is the only wanting link in the chain of facts which prove the 

 unity and unchangeability of nature. He has watched organic decom- 

 posing substances, and found they give rise to the lowest imaginable 

 and smallest visible germs, which transform themselves into fungi 

 and monads. All larger infusoria, he maintains, are only further 

 stages of the development of these monads. The panspermic theory 

 of Pasteur is to him an unproven hypothesis. And in discussing the 

 beginning of life on the globe, he maintains that the first formation 

 must have been capable of living on water and minerals, and that 

 such a being is to the present day still formed spontaneously — the 

 protococcus ! A remarkable discussion was evoked by this extraor- 

 dinary paper, opened by Vogt, of Geneva, with the inquiry after the 

 circumstances under which protococci originated. Having been in- 

 formed that pure water in a hermatically-sealed tube would, on stand- 

 ing, deposit these beings, he gained an easy victory by remarking that 

 they must be a reign of organic beings for themselves, as capable of 

 living on pure water, which neither plants nor animals coidd do. 

 Beniak, of Berlin, then said, in a somewhat depreciating manner, that 

 it was only necessary to mention the names of Ehrenberg, Schwann, 

 Helmholtz, &c, in order to show that spontaneous generation was an 

 untenable hypothesis. This speaker was replied to by Vogt, who de- 

 claimed against this burking of inquiry by the quotation of authorities, 

 and denied the panspermic theory as a fallacy. The discussion does 

 not appear to have been carried on with that calm and philosophic 

 soberness which should distinguish similar combats of opinion. 



Proceedings or the Zoological Society. 



The meetings for November transacted a considerable amount of 

 business, in the form of papers upon subjects of Zoological interest, 

 and often the results of observations made during travel in the past 

 summer. Mr. Newton contributed notes on the Zoology of Spitz- 

 bergen, which he has been visiting ; Mr. Flower, the results of his 

 tour among the Museums Of Holland and Belgium, in a paper on the 

 Skeletons of Whales ; and Dr. Tristram some Ornithological results of 

 his late expedition to Palestine. He enumerated 322 species of birds 

 as obtained in that country, of which 27 were peculiar to Palestine, and 

 nine now described for the first time, but besides these, several others 

 had not been before brought to England. Mr. Tristram's reptiles 

 were remarked upon by Dr. Giinther ; but his most remarkable col- 

 lection was the series of fishes from the Lake of Galilee, of which the 

 greater part proved to be new to science. Amongst them were several 

 species of the African genera Chromis and Hemichromis. Several im- 



