NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 55 
of restraint, and his loquacity and pugnacious "mie are at times quite 
amusing, and if successfully acclimated, we may expect eventually to find 
him — a among ¢ our villages and farm menit, as well as 
winters, when the earth is bound by frost or enveloped with snow, in the 
shape of a few daily handfuls of grain and a snug shelter under the eaves 
of the barn or outhouse, would, I apprehend, be the extent of his de- 
mands on our sympathies, and with his cheerful company and active ser- 
vice during the ensuing season in exterminating those insectivorous pests 
the garden and i caet the curculio, cankerworm (Et sui generis), 
would be yea an ample remuneration, and a more plentiful supply of 
n S and luscious nns w we might expect as one of many other 
beneficial sey — J. R. COLLETE, Somerville, Mass. 
DIMORPHISM IN THE HIG Lien —The distinguished Swiss nat- 
uralist, M. Claparéde, in a ieee rticle: “Researches on the Annelids,” 
published in the **Bibliothéque arobi Archives des Sciences Phys- 
iques et Naturelles,” gives an abstract of his studies of the annelids of the 
Gulf of Naples, in which he confirms the discovery of cui (noticed 
in the NATURALIST, Vol. iii, p. 494) that Heteronereis is a form eo 
genus Nereis. He states that Ehlers, in 1867, in his ** Die vexati 
a work on the higher annelids, has shown the undoubted specific unity of 
er 1 e umerilii and Heteronereis fucicola; of Ne- 
illosa, and Heteronereis Middendorfii ; ys Nereis fucata and Hetero- 
pain TETA "e another Heteronereis to Nereis Agas d 
ns. inks the Nereids are ugs into Heteronereids 
separate sexes. But, among the peame see yen es (Carma- 
i toder 
c 
M. Dumeril has spes us with, offers certain points of analogy wit 
that of Nereis Dumerilii.” 
The bearing of these remarkable discoveries, as well as those 
dimorphie forms of insects, on Darwinism, -— especially oe dati 
Cope's theory of the origin of genera, is start g, and strongly con- 
firmatory of the latter phase of the theory of Soak ie 
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