650 The Arnerkan Naturalist. [July. 
kidney (although its vessels share in the dilatation) undergoes passive 
shrinking. There is no evidence of decussation of vaso-motor fibres 
in the splanchnic, i.e., the right splanchnic sends fibres to the right 
kidney only, not to the left. 
Physiology of the Heart of the Snake.— In the Canadian 
Record of Science, Vol. II., No. 8, Oct. 1887, is given an account 
by T. Wesley Mills of a study of the heart of the snake, which closes 
with the following summary : 
1. The investigations recorded in this paper were made in mid- 
winter, on fasting but not hibernating animals. 
2. Comparison of the vagi showed that in every instance both 
nerves were efficient ; but usually the right was the more so ; in some 
cases the difference, if actual, was minimal. 
3. Stimulation of the vagi leads to after increased force and fre- 
quency of beat, or the former only, and according to the law of in- 
verse proportion previously announced by the writer. 
4. The mode of arrest of the heart is identical with that noted in 
chelonians, fish, etc. ; the same applies to the mode of 1 
5. During vagus arrest, the sinus and auricles are inexcitable. 
6. There are certain peculiar cardiac effects not explicable by refer- 
ence to the vagi nerves alone, but which put the sympathetic system of 
nerves in a new light. 
7. Direct stimulation of the heart confirms results previously noted 
by the writer for other cold-blooded animals. Arrest is, in all the 
animals of this class yet examined, owing to stimulation of the termi- 
nals of the vagi within the heart's substance. 
8. As regards independent cardiac rhythm, the results have been 
9. The heart of the snake, upon the whole, seems to lie physiologi- 
cally between that of the frog and that of the chelonians. X. 
ARCH/EOLOGY AND K'l'HNOLOGY. 
Aboriginal remains near Old Chickasaw, Iowa. On the 
west side of the Little Cedar River, about one and one-half miles below 
Old Chickasaw, Iowa, are located ten mound-builder mounds. 
The same locality, by disease, war, emigration, or other causes, 
may have been depopulated and again repeopled by other races, each 
