in the Museum, and notes on Costa Rican birds. A new 



genus of deep sea fishes (Benthodesmus) from the Banks of New- 

 foundland, is also described by Messrs. Goode and Bean, while 

 Messrs. Jordan and Gilbert describe thirty-three new species of 

 fishes from Mazatlan. To the same serial Dr. Shufeldt con- 

 tributes remarks on the osteology of the glass snake ( Opkio$auru$ 

 ventmlis). The Proceedings also contains Mr. Dall's descrip- 

 tion of certain limpets and chitons from the deep waters off 



the eastern coast of the United States. At a recent meeting 



(April 1 8), of the London Zoological Society, Professor Flower 

 read a paper upon the mutual affinities of the animals composing 

 the order of Edentata, in which the usual binary division into 

 Phyllophaga (or Tardigrada) and Entomophaga (or Vermilingua) 

 was shown not to agree with the most important structural 

 characters. These, according to the interpretation put upon them 

 by the author, indicates that the Bradypodidse and Megatheriidae 

 are allied to the Myrmecophagidae, and also, though less closely 

 to the Dasypodidae, all the American forms thus constituting one 

 primary division of the order, from which both the Manidae and 

 Orycteropodidae of the old world are totally distinct. A com- 

 munication was also read from Mr. Charles Darwin, introducing 

 a paper by Dr. Van Dyck, of Beyrout, on the modification of 



a race of Syrian street dogs by means of natural selection. 



Mr. O. Thomas likewise read an account of a small collection of 

 mammals from the State of Durango, Central Mexico, in which 

 examples of several northern forms, not hitherto recorded so far 

 South, and several southern forms not hitherto known so far 

 North, occurred. In an essay on certain points in the mor- 

 phology of the Blastoid crinoids, Messrs. Etheridge and Carpenter 

 discuss In a way preliminary to their larger forthcoming work, some 



points which will interest our western palaeontologists. Dr. J. 



Gwyn Jeffreys continues in the Proceedings of the Zoological- 

 Society his account of the deep sea mollusks procured during 



the Lishtnhijr and Porcupine Kxpeditions in 1866-70. In 



tlu ' HuUetin of the U. S. Fish Commission, Mr. J. A. Ryder has 

 a very interesting paper on the Protozoa and Protophytes con- 

 He has also found that the food of the very young shad consists 

 almost entirely of very small crustaceans, the very youngest 

 Daphnidaj.etc. Larger .shad swallow small larval Diptera, besides 

 Kntmnustraca. He savs that the mode in which the young fish 

 capture their entomostracan prev inav be guessed from then- oval 

 armature. Most tlAx larva: appear "to be provided with small, 



