614 NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 
ersky touching the startling vertebrate features of the early condition of 
ils h 
tube on one side of the axis and a visceral tube on the other.” He, more- 
over, describes in his species of Phallusia the neural tube as not merely 
an almost spherical vesicle, but as prolonged in the form of a fine hoilow 
thread into the tail above the notochord or axis. He promises full de- 
ze shortly, and we hope to be able to return to this most important 
er. — Nature, London. 
E Wrens.—I have had the pleasure of being acquainted with 
Perm cedit birds ( Zroglodytes edon) for several years. They have bred 
in and around my house, until they have become so tame as sometimes to 
allow the children to handle them. They have become so numerous that 
I do not furnish boxes for all, and s ey make nests in many singular 
b 
F 
sack in an outbuilding. In both of these places the birds succeeded in 
rearing a brood. But the most singular place selected for a nest was the 
wooden stirrup of a saddle hanging in a shed, in which, however, the 
birds did not prosper, as the saddle was often used. They carried smal 
dry twigs and other rubbish, consisting of pieces of steel wire, dried 
snakes’ skin, ete., into the knapsack, enough to have filled a half bushel 
measure, filling the entire cavity, except a little corner which they lined 
with feathers, where they laid seven or eight egg&. I also noticed their 
superior instinct, if not reason, whilst building in a box near my kitchen 
door. The hole in the box would not admit the long twigs the birds 
tried to get in, and they fell to the ground. After many efforts and fail- 
ures the wrens concluded by making a scaffolding, which they succeeded 
in doing by taking in several shorter sticks endwise, letting the ends pro- 
ject out of the hole; then they proceeded bylaying the long twigs on 
these projecting ends, then getting into the box, and by sliding the long 
twig endwise until the end came opposite the hole, they pulled it in. I 
mused to see one trying to carry a large nail heavier than itself. 
They are amusing little fellows in many ways. Their song is melodious, 
loud and clear, and I have often wondered that such loud music could b 
produced by initi so small. — Wm. J. MCLAUGHLIN, Centralia, Kan. 
DREDGING OFF THE BnrirIsH Istes.— Our Admiralty, at the ' 
DEEP SEA 
instance of the Royal EPEN placed a war steamer at its disposal 
for sounding, dredging, taking deep sea temperatures, and making other 
physical Mrsitgations. “The > Steamer left about ien panes of May; and I 
onths. Prof. Wy- 

5 Thomson succeeded me; and Dr. Carpenter Movil. We dredged 
à at p between ten and two thousand four hundred and thirty- 

everywhere getting mollusca, crustacea, and other inverte- 
PINTURAS a EM VH SPP REESE: 





