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ZOOLOGY. 285 
AFFINITIES OF THE KING-CRAB.— A paper on the Anatomy of 
the American King-crab (Limulus polyphemus Latr.), by Professor 
Owen, recently occupied two meetings of the Linnæan Society of 
London. The learned author entered into an elaborate description 
of the external structure and muscular and nervous systems of the 
King-crab, and of its habits and modes of life as investigated by 
Rev. Dr. Lockwood, of New Jersey, and Mr. W. A. Lloyd, at the 
Aquarium at the Crystal Palace. After a résumé of the views of 
its structure and affinities entertained by Woodward, Spence, 
Bate, Packard, Dohrn, Salter, Huxley and other carcinologists, 
and a reference to the analogies of the Xiphosura with the ex- 
tinct Trilobites and Eurypteridæ, Professor Owen summed up in 
favor of retaining the Limulus as a member, though a somewhat 
aberrant one of the class Crustacea. Prof. Van Beneden, the 
eminent Belgian embryologist, on the other hand, has published 
a paper in the “Comptes Rendus de la Société Entomologique de 
Belge,” in which, from a study of the embryological development 
of Limulus, he arrives at the following conclusions :— 1. That 
the Limuli are not Crustaceans, as none of the characteristic 
phases of the development of Crustacea can be distinguished ; 
i and that, on the other hand, their development shows the closest 
resemblance to that of the Scorpions and other Arachnida. 
2. That the affinity between the Limuli and Trilobites cannot be 
doubted ; and that the analogy between them is the greater in 
Proportion as we examine them at a less advanced period of their 
development. 3. That the Trilobites, as well as the Eurypteride 
and Pecilopoda must be separated from the class Crustacea, and. 
must form, with the Arachnida, a distinct division.— A. W. B. 
7 Respiration or Fisnes. — M. Gréhant, in his lectures on respi- 
en recently delivered at the Ecole Pratique de la Faculté de 
Cine of Paris, mentions some interesting facts in relation 
-to the respiration of fishes. He refers to the researches of M.M. 
umboldt and Provencal, who found that a tench placed in a 
“all quantity of water (three or four quarts) used nearly the 
ole of the dissolved oxygen in the course of seventeen hours, 
Ist a quantity of carbonic acid amounting to about four-fifths 
oxygen removed was exhaled. They found that the whole 
eof the body of the tench acted like the gills in removing 
Oxygen, as the same amount disappeared when the animal was 
of 
