678 General Notes. [August, 



Spatangus and a Psammechinus. The Trichina when encysted 



in salt meat has been found, by M. Fourment, to possess vitality. 

 In salt meat prepared fifteen months back were live Trichina:, 

 which were fully evolved in the alimentary canal of a new host, 

 and caused death. — ■ — Professor Th. Eimer contributes to Nature 

 a letter regarding the existence of a voice in lizards, which lie 

 has observed in the wall lizard'of the rocks of Capri, a peculiarity 

 generally ascribed among reptiles to geckoes and chamneleons 

 alone. This lizard makes a peculiar soft piping sound on being 

 captured, and " uttered repeatedly in quick succession, a series of 

 very sharp tones, sounding like 'bschi,' and reminding me of the 

 hoarse piping of a mouse or a young bird." Duges also states 

 that Lacerta edisardsi, a little lizard peculiar to the shores of the 

 Mediterranean, is apt to utter a sound like the croaking of a 

 Cerambyx, while La, , ria oceUala.wXw.w mgry, will expel its breath 

 so vehemently that a sort of noise is produced. According to 

 Landois Lacerta viridis is able to utter a distinctly hissing or 

 blowing sound. Tapoya douglassii, a kind of lizard' living near 

 the Oregon lake, when irritated, hisses very audibly, while the 



iguanas are reported to hiss and blow on being caught. -A 



pigmy pig (Poraitia sa/ra/zia), a very rare creature from the 

 Doars of Photan, has recently been added to the Zoological So- 

 ciety's collection in London. These lively little pigs, says a cor- 

 respondent of Nature, probably weigh hardly as much as a hare, 

 but are most active and energetic, and are ordinary pigs in minia- 

 ture. Professor Marey has lately published an article on a 



" photographic gun," by which he has been enabled to take some 

 most interesting instantaneous photographs of birds in flight. 

 ENTOMOLOGY. 1 

 Change 1 : of Habit ; two new enemies of the Egg-plant. — In 

 our writings on the Colorado potato-beetle, we have repeatedly 

 drawn attention to the fact that Doryphora juncta, although a 

 native of the Atlantic States and living in the midst of our culti- 

 vated species of Solanum, has yet never shown any inclination to 

 leave its natural food-plant, the wild horse-nettle \Solanum caro- 

 linense) for the cultivated species of the genus. We have now • 



culture, Dr. A. Oemler, of Wilmington island, near Savannah, 



egg j.hints" 1 in the earlier part of June. There can be no doubt 

 about the correctness of Dr. Oemfer's observations, as the speci- 

 mens were sent to us for determination. This is another of those 

 instances of remarkable and sudden change in the food-habit of a 

 tolerably common and otherwise well-known species which led us 

 to the remarks made on p. 152 of this volume anent " New Insects 

 injurious to Agriculture." As in other cases of this sort the 



•This department is edited by Prof. C. V. Ru.EV, Washington, D. C, to whom 

 comiuimicati....,, .ei he sent. 



