1877.] Recent Literature. 423 
minutes moved slowly, but with a direct, well coördinated gait, 
then it partly recovered, and moved more briskly. Another 
smaller Hpeira-like spider did not seem to suffer, except that its 
motions were slower, and on being touched, it would gather up 
its legs and feign death. 
A species of Julus and of Polydesmus, on amputation of their 
antennæ, rather long stumps remaining, were at first somewhat 
discommoded and then seemed to walk well, but less rapidly 
than before. 
It would be premature to draw any inferences from these ex- 
periments, but the impression is left on the mind that in remov- ` 
ing the antennz in some cases, it seemed as if something more 
was effected than making the insect deaf or depriving it of the 
sense of taste or smell, and it seemed as if the ganglionic cen- 
tres were affected, particularly the supra-cesophageal pair, the 
insect being at first more or less stunned or confused, and then, 
in many cases, acting as if the nervous centres were permanently 
affected ; not so much as if one of its senses, but all or nearly all, 
were more or less affected. In fact, the movements somewhat 
resembled those of a dove from which the cerebral hemispheres 
had been removed, as in the case described in Dalton’s Physiology, 
and the fact that the insects can distinguish light from darkness, 
perhaps the main function of the eyes, and taste their appropriate 
food, does not militate against the idea that the nervous centres 
are seriously affected. On the other hand, no such effects are 
- produced when the leg, or even, in some cases, the abdomen, is 
removed. I do not see that my experiments enable us to prove 
anything as to the nature of the function of the antennæ, except to 
indicate that the insect’s brain is as it were projected into them, 
and that their nerves probably possess nucleated cells, homologous 
with those of the ganglia from which the sense-nerves originate. 
— ed 
RECENT LITERATURE. 
Ganin’s Meramorrnoses or Inszots.!— The author begins with 
à rapid survey of previous salon ree by Weismann, Uljanin, Chun, 
Paul Mayer, Auerbach, and shows the unsatisfactory condition of bod 
knowledge and the necessity of a verification of the statements of those 
1 Materials for a Knowledge of the Post-Embryonal Development of Insects. By 
Prorzsson M. Ganry. Warsaw. 1876. 4to, 76 pages and 4 plates. (Extracte 
from the Transactions of the Fifth git y Tpssinn Naturalists in Warsaw ; “ih 
tion of Zoblogy and Comparative Anatomy, 
