1879. | Zoology. 711 
position was afterwards corroborated by seeing a fish vainly 
struggling to free itself from the Beleostoma that had pierced it 
with its beak and was, to all appearance, pumping out its blood. 
This particular specimen of Beleostoma was in great need of 
nourishment, for it provided for over a hundred plump little red 
mites that were attached to different portions of its body.— Henry 
urner. 
NORTHERN RANGE OF CERMATIA FoRCEPS.—Mr. Samuel Hen- 
_ Shaw writes us that of this Myriopod the museum of the Boston 
Society of Natural History contains six specimens taken in 
Massachusetts, and that he knows of three others found in the 
same State. Mr. F. G. Sanborn tells him that it has been taken 
in Milford, N. H. Mr. J. H. Emerton states that it has also oc- 
curred in Essex County, Mass. _ 
_ Tue Bran oF Insects.—An interesting paper, by E. T. New- 
ton, on this subject appears in the Quarterly Fournal of Micro- 
Scopical Science for July. The author refers to the complicated inter- 
nal structure of the brain of insects as first pointed out by Dujardin. 
aive has shown that the power of coordinating the movements 
of the body is lodged in the infra-cesophageal ganglia ; this being 
the case, Newton thinks that both the upper and lower pairs of 
ganglia ought to be regarded as forming parts of the insect’s 
brain. Brandt, in a paper read September Ist before the French 
Academy, states, zzter alia, that it is untrue that all insects have 
a subcesophageal ganglion separate from the others (Rhizotrogus, 
Stylops and Hydrometra have not). The circumvolutions of the 
brain are found in a insects, in various developments, and the devel- 
opment differs in individuals of the same species. In general, the 
development of the hemispheres, but not of the whole brain, is 
related to instincts and habits. In some insects having two 
of ganglia, in others by an opposite process. 
_ AGency OF InFusorRIA IN FERTILIZING SEA-WEEDS.—It appears 
from the studies of Prof. Dodel-Port, the eminent Zurich botanist, 
says Nature, that certain infusoria harbored by the red sea-weeds, 
return the favor by fertilizing the sea-weeds on which they live. 
Thus the currents formed in the water by the bell-shaped animal- 
cules (Vorticella) situated on the shrub-like branches of a Poly- 
siphonia, bear the otherwise immovable spores (antherozoids) of 
this Alga to the female plants, which are thus fertilized, just as 
pollen-collecting insects fertilize willow blossoms or other flowers ; 
as many insects feed on pollen, so the animalcules or infu- 
Sorians feed on the spores of the sea-weeds. — -= : 
= Miarcry in a Snake.—In 1879, while out with the Hayden 
| ‘Survey, l was detained about a week, by high water, on the south | 
