1893.] Zoology. : 285 
together the glans of the clitoris and its prepuce. These adhesions 
may bind down the prepuce so closely that not a particle of the glans 
clitoridis is in sight. They may involve half of the glans, or they may 
form only a small band. Adhesions which involve the whole, or a 
large part of the glans clitoridis cause profound disturbances in the’ 
physical and mental health of the individual, and probably form the 
most common single factor in invalidism in young women. 
In compiling statistics upon the subject, Dr. Morris found that pre- 
putial adhesions are rare among negresses, and seem to occur only in 
those possessing a large admixture of white blood. 
The author considers the degenerate clitoris a chatrieteiiitic of the 
civilized white race. (Am. Journ. of Obstetrics, Vol. xxvi, 1892.) 
Zoological News—-Reptiles.—Professor O. P. Hay has a 
valuable paper’ on the breeding habits, eggs, and young of certain 
snakes, to which referencé must be made by all who wish information 
on this subject. The same author also notes‘ the ejection of blood from 
the eyes of the horned toad. Thesame habit on the part of Phrynosoma 
has been noted by other observers, but Professor Hay has settled, by 
microscopic examination, the fact that it is really blood which- is 
squirted out from the outer canthus of the eye. 
Dr. Oppel, of Freiburg, i.B., deals* with the fertilization of iis Bei- 
tilian Egg. His observations were made upon Anguis fragilis, Tropid- 
notus natrix and Lacerta viridis. The article deals with the behavior. 
of the male and female pronuclei and the accessory sperm nucleus, the 
questions a to the latter being still left open. 
Dr. H. K. Corning, of Prague, deals with some points in n the develop- 
ment of the vertebree and the myotomic ceelom in Anguis and Tropido- 
notus®, The myotomic celom persists until after the formation of the 
neural arches of the vertebræ, hence it is easy to see that the segmenta- 
tion of the vertebre results from the formation of inter-vertebral split- 
tings which correspond in position to the divisions between the primi- 
tive myotomes. The whole question of resegmentation of the vertebral. 
column is not, says Corning, so simple as has been thought. 
The subject of Variation in the snakes of North America, treated 
of by Cope in a late paper,’ is taken up by Hay, in his Presi- 
i a U. S. Nat. Mus. XV., 385, 1892; cf. Proc. Ind. Acad. Sci., 1891, p. 109, 
“L.c., p 875. 
5Archiv. f. mikr. Anat. xxxix., 215., 1892. 
ê Morph. Jahrbuch., xvii., p. 611, 1 
1Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., xiv., 589, 1892. 
