558 Chronicles of Science. [Oct., 



that Hyalonema is an artificial Japanese product, and Professor 

 Max Schultz seems to gain most support in regarding them as the 

 joint productions of a sponge and a polyp, Professor J. Y. Barboza 

 du Bocage is doing his best to prove that a European Hyalonema 

 is found off the coast of Portugal. In two letters to Dr. Gray, of 

 the British Museum, he has given the names of persons (mostly 

 fishermen) who have obtained altogether twelve specimens of 

 Hyalonema for him, when engaged in the shark-fishery. He con- 

 siders there can have been no fraud, as vessels do not sail from the 

 part of the Portuguese coast in question to Japan. Moreover, he 

 says that the fishing people and others know them as " chicote de 

 mar," that is to say, " sea-whips." Altogether, the evidence seems 

 to be in favour of the reality of Hyalonema Lusitanicum, but its 

 occurrence must be still regarded as a very strange and anomalous 

 fact. Perhaps, before long, the distribution of Hyalonema may be 

 shown to be very much wider than was supposed, and then the 

 strangeness of a genus having representatives only in Japan and 

 Portugal will disappear. 



Physiology. 



Regeneration of Limbs. — M. Philipeaux has been of late 

 favouring the French Academy with various communications 

 on the regeneration of limbs or organs of various animals, after 

 amputation or excision. He has made a large series of experiments 

 on the re-development of the spleen, and has found in all cases that 

 it is not regenerated unless a certain portion has been left as a 

 starting point for the new growth. So, too, with the fore-limbs of the 

 larger Newt ; when amputated so as to leave the basal portion intact, 

 the limb was rapidly and entirely re-formed, but when the limb 

 was removed with the scapula, nothing was produced but a cicatrix. 

 M. Philipeaux has now made similar experiments on some of the 

 Mexican Axolotls, which were hatched in the Jardin des Plantes 

 last year. The experiments were made on ten individuals, five of 

 which had the left anterior limb entirely amputated, and five the 

 right anterior limb only partially so — that is to say, leaving the 

 head of the humerus and the scapula. In all five of the first series 

 there is now a simple cicatrix ; in all five of the second series, the 

 whole limb has been completely regenerated. 



Muscular Contractibility. — M. Bouget has been studying mus- 

 cular contraction, and has taken as his starting point the stem 

 of the Vorticella. He repeats the well-known observations on that 

 structure, and remarks that the state of repose in the Vorticella- 

 stem in its contracted condition is shown principally by its assum- 

 ing this state when freed in any way from the bell-like body it 



