264 Scientific. News. [Apri 
period: That is, if a cow has just produced a male calf, and is 
served at the next period of heat, a heifer will be the result ; thus 
‘each ovum producing alternately male and female. If, as is often 
the case, your male is kept separate from the cows, you will have 
superior advantages for observation, and your results will prove 
of value in determining the question. 
“ Each one who will thus assist, and gives notice of his desire 
to do so by enclosed card, will receive a copy of the total result, 
and will also be entitled to the thanks of the Department.’ 
— An account and figure of a two headed gopher snake (Pity- 
ophis species), by Mr. J. W. A. Wright, appears in the Mining 
and Scientific Press, San Francisco, February 16, 1878. A similar 
‘monstrosity in an eastern species, the common striped snake, we 
believe, was described by the late Professor Wyman, in the Pro- 
ceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History for January 21, 
1863 (vol. ix). 
German botanist, Regel, has discovered, according to 
Nature, in the Himalayas a variety of wild onion, which he re- 
gards as the original source of our ordinary garden onion. It is 
called A/hum cepa sylvestre. 
— The well-known Danish conchologist, Dr. A. L. Morch, 
died in January last at Nice. The eminent Swedish botanist, 
Prof. Elian Fries, died at Upsala, February 8, in his 84th year. 
— Drs. W. Marshall and A. B. Meyer, have published @ 
memoir, as one of a series of communications to the Zodlogical 
Museum, at Dresden, “On some new or little known sponges be- 
longing to the Hexactinellida found in the Philippines.” It seems 
but the other day since one could have numbered on the fingers 
of one hand all the known species of this family, so well known 
o many by that beautiful typical form, the Venus’s flower-basket 
(Euplectella), and now the number of described species is very 
large. In 1872 one of the authors (Dr. Meyer) was staying at 
being attached to the basal portion of Euplectella. Semperella 
schultzei is figured of a natural size from a specimen twenty-one 
inches in length, and figures of the spicules of the various new 
species are also given. Vazture. 
= — The interest in the reproduction of Batrachians is by no means 
yet exhausted, says Nature. A Spanish naturalist, Jimenez de la 
Espada, has recently discovered additional facts respecting Rhino- 
derma darwinii (of Chili), which was first made known by ME, 
Darwin. He finds that the supposed viviparous birth of the young 
from the female is a very different phenomenon. It is the males i 
