326 General Notes. [April, 



which had been out of water for a day, I made a little slit in the 

 back, hoping to be able to penetrate between the cervical verte- 

 brae with a stout scalpel, and cut the spinal cord. After several 

 trials, in which I succeeded only in breaking the scalpel, I gave 

 up the attempt ; but with all my cutting and pushing, it mani- 

 fested not the slightest signs of pain or irritation, while if I 

 but touched the tip of its tail with my finger, it would make a 

 vigorous protest by lashing its tail and snapping its jaws. I 

 doubt if even the redoubted snapping-turtle could show signs of 

 a more "rugged" constitution. — Wm. Frear, University of Lewis- 



The First Californian Eel Caught.— The San Francisco 

 Chronicle of February 8th, reports the catching by George Bird 

 of the first eel, resulting from the plant of 12,000 made by the 

 California Fish Commissioners. It was caught on the easterly 

 shore of San Francisco bay, and measured three feet in length. — 

 R. E. C. Stearns. 



Wild Geese as Pests. — In the latter part of January, the 

 farmers of the Upper San Joaquin valley in California, were fight- 

 ing the wild geese, which in vast numbers were devastating the 

 grain-fields of that region, pulling up the young wheat by the 

 roots.— R. E. C. Steams. 



Zoological Notes. — The Proceedings of the National Museum 

 contain notes on a collection of fishes from the west coast 

 of Mexico, by D. S. Jordan and C. H. Gilbert, while Mr. 

 T. H. Bean gives a preliminary catalogue of the fishes 

 of Alaska. Mr. C. H. Boyd records the discovery of the 

 remains of a walrus near Addison Point, Washington county, 

 Me., in a bed of blue clay two feet above high water mark. A 

 few years ago a nearly perfect skeleton was found in the marine 



clays at Portland, Me. Excellent zoological work is now being 



done in Japan by students educated in the United States and 

 Europe. In the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science Mr. 

 Mitsukuri recently published an article on the structure of the 

 gills of Lamellibranchs, and in the January number a paper on 

 the development of the supra-renal bodies in Mammalia. In the 

 Zoologischer Anseiger, January 9, Mr. Jijima gives an abstract of 

 a memoir on the structure of the ovary, and the origin of the egg 

 and the egg-strings in Nephelis, and Mr. T. Iwakawa gives the 



results of studies on the genesis of the egg in Triton. A revision 



of the Crustaceous family Idoteidce, by E. J. Miers, with full de- 

 scriptions of the species, is published in the Journal of the Linnean 



