814 General Notes. [ October, 
eggs often occur on the surface of the testes; so that here there is 
a rudimentary hermaphroditism, the structural arrangement, how- 
ever, not permitting self-fertilization. Whether the shells of 
Planorbis are dextral or sinistral, Mr. R. E. C. Stearns discusses 
in a very interesting and suggestive paper in the Proceedings of 
the Academy of Natural Sciences, of Philadelphia. He believes 
that they are sinistral. The variations in the shells of certain 
species are then described in a way to be of much value from an 
evolutionary standpoint. The publication of the Bulletin of the 
Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences has been resumed by the is- 
sue of the first number of Volume rv, the most interesting article 
in which is Mr. E. E. Fish’s on the imitative and ventriloquial 
power of birds, containing original observations of merit. 
third paper on American spiders, by Count Keyserling, appears 
in Verhandlungen der K. K. Zodl.-bot. Gesellschaft in Wien. 
Among the new species are Epeira cavatica from caves in Ken- 
tucky, and Ce/lotes juvenilis from Mammoth cave. We glean 
Museum, June-August: Capt. Bendire has shown that the sup- 
family Centrarchide are reviewed by Mr. C. L. McKay. The 
detailed review of the genus Centurus will interest ornithologists, 
panying illustration (Fig. 1, 4) will, we believe, convey the desired 
information even better than could words. 
- Having, in 1876, reared Hydrophilus triangularis from the gs 
to the perfect state, and made a number of notes upon it, We 
would take this occasion to supplement Mr. Garman’s article with 
a few facts that may interest the general reader. The asymmetry 
in the jaws, noted by Mr. Garman, is constant so far 
observed, and is, in fact, quite common in Carabide generally: 
The egg-case of H. triangularis, described by Mr. Garman, pied 
fers materially from that of the European H. piceus, according ri 
descriptions of this last. We found the former to consist virtually 
of three distinct parts, and the subsidiary figure (2) will, perhaps, 
more fully indicate these parts than did Mr. Garman’s reer 
There is, first, what may be called the floater (Fig. 2, peor 
‘This department is edited by Pror. C. V. Rrtey, Washington, D. C., t© whom: 
communications, books for notice, etc., should be sent. 
