54 The American Naturalist. {January, 
Insects of Central Africa.—H. Grose Smith catalogues’ 111 : 
species of Lepidoptera; W. L. Distant, 48 Rhynchota; and H. W. q 
Bates, 73 Coleoptera, collected by William Bonney in the Great For- ; 
est of Central Africa while on the Emin Pasha relief expedition. The 
number of novelties is comparatively small, and the insect fauna shows 
very marked resemblances to that of the western coast of Africa. 
Studies on Amphioxus.—F. E. Weiss has had the opportunity 
to study at Naples some points in the anatomy and physiology of Am- 
phioxus which needed elucidation. The basis of his work was the 
paper by Professor Lankester,‘ in which many unsolved questions were 
pointed out. Weiss now settles some of these. Feeding with car- 
mine seems to show that there is not that intimate connection of : 
ccelom with the vascular system that had been supposed. Manyot 
the connections and relations of the circulatory tubes have been made 
out, while the most interesting discovery is that of excretory tubules, 
paired and branchiomeric, occurring at the upper part of the branchial 
apparatus, in connection with the secondary or tongue-bars. Each 
these tubules is supplied with a comparatively large blood-vessel. It is 
bent in the shape of the letter S, and empties into the atrial cavity. 
Weiss was not certain whether it communicates with the ccelom or 
not, his sections failing to settle this point. These tubules are re- 
garded as nephridial, but the author does not regard them as homolo- 
gous with the pair of tubes described by Lankester. Another point of 
-interest is that many points on the surface have also excretory functions. 
_ The Amphibian Blastopore.—R. V. Erlanger has attacked this - 
oft-studied problem, and concludes® that the anus is formed from the 
ventral, and the neurenteric canal and neuropore from the dorsal, 
margin of the blastopore. In the Anura the blastopore closes, and 
the anus later breaks through within its limits, while in the Urodeles 
there is no closing. 
The Position of the Sun Grebes.—The systematic position of 
the Heliornithidz has been very uncertain. Recently F. E. Beaga — 
has had an opportunity of studying the anatomy of Podica senegalensis 
and concludes? that if the muscles alone were concerned the sun grebe 
2 Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1890. * 
$ Vide AMERICAN NATURALIST, XXIII., p. 639, 1889. 
$ Quart. Jour. Mic. Sci, XXXI., p. 489, 1890. 
8 Zool. Jarbuch, Abth. Anat. und Ontogenie, IV., p. 239, 1890. 
* Proc. Zool. Socy. London, 1890. 
