174 ZOOLOGY. 
Albinism is much more common than melanism— the latter is 
seldom found. In my collection of about two thousand specimens 
of birds and animals (one thousand mounted) there is but one 
specimen of melanism, a black woodchuck (Arctomys monax).— 
Wm. Woop, M.D., East Windsor Hill, Conn. 
Drepornes IN THE Gute or Sr. Lawrence.— Mr. J. F. Whit 
eaves has during the past summer, according to ‘‘Nature,” dredged 
in from fifty to two hundred and fifty fathoms in the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence. Atadepth of one hundred and sixty and two hundred 
fathoms a number of sea pens (Pennatule) were dredged, this ge- 
nus not having previously been found on the Atlantic voast of 
America. A Spatangus also occurred; and the following shells, 
which are new or very rare on this side of the Atlantic : —Pe- 
ten Gronlandicus Chemn. not Sowb., Arca pectunculoides Sacchi, 
Yoldia lucida Lovén, Y. frigida Torell, Newra arctica Sars, Ñ 
obesa Lovèn, Dentalium abyssorum Sars, Siphonodentalium vitreum 
Sars, Eulima stenostoma Jeffreys, Bela Trevelyana, Chrysodomus 
(Sipho) Sarsii, and C. Spitzbergensis, the latter shell occurring M 
shoal water. 
Tue Orion or Ixsecrs.— At a meeting of the Linnæan Society 
of London held on November 2d, Sir John Lubbock, Bart., F.RS. | 
read a paper on this subject, which has always presented one a 
the most difficult problems to the Darwinian theory. ee 
great difficulty in conceiving by what process of natu al selection i 
an insect with a suctorial mouth like a gnat or a butterfly could be 
developed from a powerful mandibulate type like the Orthopter, : 
or even the Neuroptera. M. Brauer has recently suggested thal | 
the interesting genus Campodea is, of all known existing pei! . 
that which most nearly resembles the parent insect stock, ale : 
which are descended, not only the most closely allied Collem te 
and Thysanura, but all the other great orders of insects. : ad S 
insects we have a type of animal closely resembling certain d á 
which occurs in both the mandibulate and suctorial series late ; 
sects, and which possesses x mouth neither distinctly mando 
nor distinctly suctorial, but constituted as a peculiar ty pe, © + io 
of modification in either direction by gradual changes; withow oi 
of utility. The complete metamorphosis of the Lepidopter> - 
optera and Diptera, will then be the result of adaptive ne Fe, 
brought about through a long series of- generations. — A- arr 
5 
