926 The American Naturalist. [November, 
reichen anderen Pflanzen stiicken.” And I further ascertained 
that while the plant remains were not masticated, the shells 
had all been crushed to fragments. Now, if Ceratodus eats 
animal food, and has been modified more than Lepidosiren 
in the direction of herbivorous diet, it follows that Lepidosiren 
is also partly carnivorous. 
The quotation which Parker makes from my paper, referring 
to the breeding habits of the Dipnoi, applies to Ceratodus only, 
and not in any part to Lepidosiren, and the trouble arose in the 
transposition by the printer, of the reference number which 
occurs in my MS. after the word “ Beobachtung,” to the next 
line of the printed text. The transposition escaped correction 
in the proof. The authority for the statement is, to the best of 
my recollection, The Zoologist, 3d Ser. Vol. VII, 1884 (?). 
After a study of the pectoral fins, to which Professor Parker 
devoted his special attention, he concluded that they do not 
serve the function of feelers. This conclusion is not well- 
grounded, for it rests upon the author’s failure to find tactile 
SENSE ORGANS in the skin of the appendages. Our author re- 
marks “that the nerve supply seems out of all proportion to 
the rudimentary muscles, and this fact renders the absence of 
sensory organs all the more surprising,” and, on p. 124, “So 
far as I have been able to observe, all the sensory organs in 
connection with the epidermis have the form of the ‘ lateral- 
line organs’ described above, and in this point therefore, as 
in many others, Protopterus resembles amphibians more than 
fishes,” a conclusion which, will without doubt prove to be 
too lightly drawn, for from the knowledge which we possess 
of nerve endings in the skin of fishes, and the methods 
of demonstrating them, it should not be a very difficult matter 
to show that the large nerve supply is, in this instance, distrib- 
uted to the epithelium of the pectoral appendages in its char- 
acter of a sensory apparatus. 
The nerve supply indicates that the brachial nerve must 
contain many sensory fibers. It is composed of the first three 
spinal nerves, the dorsal and ventral roots of the hypoglosal, 
and a branch of the vagus. There is every evidence that the 
appendage is a very sensitive tactile organ, and the nerve-end 
