ZOOLOGY. 483 
Lütken :—1. The most energetic manifestation of the faculty of 
regeneration in animals is the power of divisibility ; 2. In certain 
forms of Radiates, in which the faculty of regeneration is very 
highly developed, spontaneous division takes place only, as in ophi- 
uroids and asteroids, or together with gemmation as in Actinia; 
3. Actual spontaneous division or schizogony in the Actinia, 
Medusa, asteroids and ophiuroids, which must not be confounded 
with the disguised form of gemmation met with in Infusoria and 
certain heteropods, may be regarded as a peculiar form of agamie 
reproduction, such as Blastogony, Sporogony and Parthenogony. 
— Nature. 
Hasits or a Species or Sorex. — As far as my observation 
goes this is the most diminutive animal among the quadruped type. 
It is the musk — I had like to have said mouse — but except the 
incisors, it resembles the Talpa family more than it does the Mus. 
They are rather rare. Indeed until the present year I had never 
Seen one of them. They dwell in warm nests, made of grass, 
under rocks, old logs, or old castaway rails, about the fences or 
edges of the prairie. They do not come about the houses, and are 
purely nocturnal. I have found only three nests of them. They 
have four young at a time, which they nurse and care for most 
affectionately. I had a family of them and fed them a week, where 
could observe all their actions. I had the father and mother and 
their four half-grown offspring. They were pretty pets, and I had 
hoped to succeed in sending the whole family to you, but our 
cherished hopes are often frustrated. The male made his escape, 
and finding another newly married pair — they do marry, and as 
far as I can learn, stick together as long as they both live—I put 
them into the box with my half civilized family. The male 
instantly caught a young one and was aiming to kill it, when 
I put him and his companion into an empty oyster can, and setting 
it back in the box, went to supper. When I returned, I found that 
the ferocious rascally male had made shift to get out of the can, 
and had murdered all the young ones. I was very sorry for the 
loss, and thinking he had done all the mischief he could, turned his 
Wife out of the oyster can, and left them in the box with the be- 
reaved and deeply afflicted mother. Next morning I found they 
had murdered the sorrowing mother and had eaten her very nearly 
UP. These last two captured cannibals I have sent you. The 
