1897,] Zoology. 73 
The larvee chosen varied from 3-6 em in length. Each was held in 
a damp cloth to avoid injury, the cornea carefully slit with a scalpel 
and the lens removed without injuring the iris. Within one day 
changes were noted in the layer of cells composing the latter. The 
inner layer began to take on the appearance of embryonic cells. The 
cells began to loose their pigment, which was taken up and carried off by 
the leucocytes that began to fill the pupillar space. Then they began to 
Vy 
prow: 
Fig. 1. I0 days after the destruction of the lens; showing the new lens, 4 
n. 
iglecidenitag from the iris. Fig. 2, 18, days after the operatio 
increase in size and by the tenth day a small group of them, recogniza- 
ble as a small swelling in the accompanying figure, copied in outline 
from the author’s figure, had been pushed into the pupillar space. 
From this time on, the group of cells underwent all the changes recog- 
nizable in the normally developing lens. The posterior layer became 
much thicker than the anterior; its cells became more or less colum- 
nar and finally arranged themselves in concentric layers covered as a 
whole by the outer one-celled layer. By the fortieth day after the op- 
eration, the inner cells forming the inner three-fifths of the lens had 
lost their nuclei and become transparent. By the sixtieth day the re- 
generated lens had every appearance of a normal one. 
The changes were followed through from day to day and, as shown 
_ by the fifteen figures given by the author, seem conclusive.—F, C. 
Kenyon. 
The English Sparrow not Always a Nuisance.—It is grati- 
fying to run across direct evidence that that feathered nuisance of our 
large cities, the English sparrow, does a little real good, after all that 
may be said against him. According to a late communication by S. 
D. Judd in the Auk, this sparrow has a fondness for the seeds of the 
common dandelion. Of all the seed-heads of this plant collected from 
aspace of ground six feet in diameter, one hundred and thirty-five 
showed traces of the bird’s beak. 
The same author says that he has seen an English sparrow chase 
through the air, catch and devour a cicada. Catching insects that 
fly in a direct line does not seem to be a very difficult matter, but 
others able, like the dragon fly and flies generally, to dodge, as well as 
