506 Chronicles of Science. [July, 



dropped down its throat. Equally strange was its conduct with re- 

 gard to its native element, the water ; for though there was a con- 

 venient pond in the enclosure where it was kept, it carefully avoided 

 going into it, and if placed therein, it scuttled out again as soon as 

 possible ; yet it evidently likes water, for it enjoys being syringed 

 amazingly, turning its head round, and stooping down so that each 

 part in turn may be well bathed. The consequence of these un- 

 accountable freaks on the part of the Penguin has been that he has at 

 length died, after being but a short time in the gardens. The specu- 

 lations of Mr. Wallace upon this bird, from a Darwinian point of 

 view, are curious. He considers it a highly specialized form of sea- 

 bird, which in the process of adaptation to an aquatic mode of life, 

 has reached a stage parallel to that of seals among quadrupeds. Their 

 affinities will, therefore, be general rather than special, since they have 

 become isolated by the extinction of a long series of nearly allied 

 predecessors. Were it not, indeed, that the duty of hatching their 

 eggs and rearing their offspring obliges them to come on shore, the 

 continued modifications of structure in accordance with the require- 

 ments of an aquatic life might have been carried still further, and 

 have produced a creature as fish-like among birds, as the whales and 

 dolphins are among mammals. 



Professor Steenstrup has contributed a remarkable memoir on the 

 migration of the upper eye of the Flounders across the head from the 

 blind side to the eye side. Calling attention to the obliquity of the 

 Pleuronectidse, and the curious fact which accompanies their want of 

 symmetry — viz. that both eyes are brought round to one side of the 

 head — he remarks that a new system of equilibrium is established for 

 Flounders, in which the dorsal and ventral instead of the lateral halves 

 become symmetrical in outline, and are equipoised. In most of the 

 Pleuronectidas (Sole), the left is the blind side ; but in some (Turbot) 

 it is the right ; in both, however, there sometimes occur " wrong 

 Flounders." Besides these there is a group of double Flounders, in 

 which the sides are nearly equally developed and coloured, and the eyes 

 placed, one in its ordinary position, and one on the top of the head ; 

 these swim vertically. In ordinary Flounders the eyes are not placed 

 in a straight line, one above the other, but the upper eye is somewhat 

 behind or before the lower, usually behind ; and between them there 

 stretches a firm, bony partition, formed of definite cranial bones. In 

 the bony cranium there is a single orbit, entirely surronnded by bone, 

 containing the upper eye only ; the lower eye lies outside the orbit, 

 and is protected above by the bones which form its lower margin, 

 which are always found to be the frontals and prefrontals belonging 

 to the eye side, and as the lower eye lies under these, it is evident that 

 it is the usual position with reference to the forehead of its own side. 

 And he infers that the eye of the blind side has come round to the 

 (inner) side of the frontal bones of the blind side, which is turned 

 towards the middle line, instead of lying at the outer (now up-turned) 

 side. The old explanation, that the abnormal position of the 

 Flounder's eyes is due simply to a greater or lesser degree of torsion 

 of the whole head upon the axis of the body, or of a part of the 



