1887] Embryology. : : 489 
Fisnes.—Prof. C. Gilbert has an important paper on rare and 
little-known ee Percide in the “ Proceeds. of the U.S. 
National Museum.” Several new species from’ Southwestern 
rivers are Bibid. 
Pr Heilprin describes, in a very imperfect manner, 
catfish which he supposes to be new, from Lake Okeechobee, 
Florida. It is a pity that Professor Heilprin did not, in his 
eae imitate some of the numerous good ee ok to 
be a n American ichthyological literature. 
r. G. A. Boulenger - recently described some new species 
of Eske from the Cong 
BATRACHIA AND READE G. A. Boulenger has pub- 
lished, in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, a list of 
the species from the department of Rio Grande do Sul of Brazil. 
He enumerates: Testudinata, 6; Crocodilia, 1; Lacertilia, 143. 
Ophidia, 42; Batrachia anura, 27; do. Urodela cæciliidæ, 1. 
Total, 63 Reptilia, 28 Batrachia. 
Professor Cope describes, in the “ Proceedings of the U. S. 
National Museum,” a new species of water-snake, of the genus 
Tropidonotus, allied to the 7: woodhouset, which he calls T. bisectus. 
It is oy known from a specimen which was killed in the grounds 
of the armory, near the National Museum, in the city of Wash- 
ington, D. C. 
Dr. G. A. Boulenger has distinguished two species of the 
genus Bombinator in Europe. The B. dombina Linn. is yellow 
below, has closely-placed dermal tubercles, etc., and inhabits 
high ground. The B. z igneus Linn. inhabits lower levels, and is 
black below, with large crimson splotches, and has the ‘dermal 
tubercles sparse, etc. 
EMBRYOLOGY. 
The Embryology of the Monotremata and Marsupialia.— 
In Nature for March 31, 1887, the following abstract is given of 
the first part of a memoir by W. H. Caldwell, with the above 
title, which was presented at the meeting of the Royal Society 
held on March 17 last. Deeming the poets one of unusual 
interest, FE author’s abstract is here given in 
“(1) The Egg-Membranes. —In Sosousiians. in very young 
ova, a eee ne membrane exists “fea the single row of follicular 
cells and the substance of the ovum. This membrane, which I 
will call the vitelline membrane, at first j increases in thickness with” 
the growth of the ovum, and through it pass numerous fine 
toplasmic processes connecting the protoplasm of the follicular 
cells with that of the ovum, and serving to conduct food-granules, 
which,, appearing in (fie neighborhood of the nuclei of the cells, 
t Edited b oiia — A. RYDER, Biological Department, University of Penn- 
sylvania, Philadelp 
L. XXI.—NO. k 33 
