492 ZOOLOGY. 
GENERATION OF Eris (AncuiIrL®).— This is a subject that has 
occupied the attention of naturalists from the earliest dawn of Ich- 
thyology ; and its importance, both in a physiological and econom- 
ical point of view, has always been, and still is recognized. 
Yarrell, in Jesse’s “Gleanings in Natural History,” and in the 
second edition of the ‘‘ History of British Fishes,” Vol. 2, p. 388, 
expresses his belief, as the result of a close examination of a 
number of eels, that they are oviparous, producing their young 
like other true bony fishes ; and he refers in support of this opinion, 
to some Hunterian drawings, on a magnificent scale, by Clift. 
Dr. Mitchell, too, of New York, coincides strictly with Yarrell. 
Though hermaphrodites in fishes have hitherto been supposed to 
occur only abnormally, as in the genus Serranus, they may perhaps 
be more common and regular than is admitted in the books of 
comparative anatomy, such as that of Owen, wherein fishes are 
said to be always diceecious. But now an Italian physiologist, G. 
B. Ercolani, in the Proceedings of the “ Accademia delle Scienze _ 
di Bologna,” of last December, describes ‘‘ Perfect Hermaphrodit- 
ism in the Eel;” the genitals only completely developed at sea 
during the month of December ; ovaries and testes then and there 
with spermatozoa; and, as he believes, the spermatozoa are 
discharged into the peritoneal sac, and the ova there fertilized 
before their emission from the body. This is surely an interesting 
statement, and in conformity with many facts well known regara- 
ing the economy of the eel. But it requires confirmation, and 
indeed the subject is so very curious and important, that it is to Þe 
hoped that ichthyologists on the seacoast will pursue the inquiry 
to its legitimate conclusion. — Land and Water. 
Anatomy OF THE Kine. Cras. — M. Alphonse Milne-Edwards 
finds that the circulating apparatus of Limulus is more perfect and 
complicated than that of any other articulate animal. The venous 
blood, instead of being diffused through interorganic lacune, 45 10 
the crustacea, is, for a considerable portion of its course, enclosed 
in proper vessels with walls perfectly distinct from the adjacent 
organs, originating frequently by ramifications of remarkable deli- 
cacy, and opening into reservoirs which are for the most part bi 
circumscribed. The nutritive liquid passes from these reservoirs 
into the branchiæ, and, after having traversed these respiratory 
organs, arrives, by a system of branchio-cardiac canals, in a peri- 
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