1883.] Zoology. 983 
groups of birds. The writer points out that it is unadvisable 
to put birds with a complete phalangeal schedule as descendants 
of those with an imperfect one, as has sometimes been done. 
HYBERNATION OF THE SPOTTED GopHER.—This is an interest- 
ing little animal which is still met with around my residence here, 
and I do not know whether its natural history has been well 
written up. Twenty-five years ago, while digging for a private 
road on a sidehill with a southern exposure, in the month of 
March, I dug out one which was rolled up ina nice hibernacle 
lined with dried grass. It felt cold to the hand when I took it 
up and appeared to be quite insensible. I took it into the house 
where the temperature of the room may have been about 70° 
Far. Ina short time it began to show signs of animation, and 
in half an hour was skipping about the room as lively as in mid- 
summer. I regret exceedingly that I did not observe the action 
of the heart while in the torpid state and the pulse, and the in- 
crease, if any, as it got warmer and was finally restored fully to 
animation. This was the only opportunity I ever had to make 
such observations. 
It has a stout neck and shortish tail like most of the marmots, 
with rather regular rows of white spots along the back and upper 
Sides. It is not figured by Anderson and Bachman, and I do not 
remember to have seen it described —/. D. Caton, Ottawa, JU, 
ZooLocica, Norrs.—FProtezoans——MM. Munier Chalmas and 
Schlumberger have lately read before the French Academy some 
observations on the dimorphism of the Foraminifera. 
Echinoderms—A most interesting crinoid has been described 
before the Royal Society by P. H. Carpenter. Among the col- 
ions of the, Challenger expedition is a Comatula which was 
dredged at a depth of 1800 fathoms in the Southern sea. Al- 
though it is unusually small, the diameter of the calyx being 
only 2™- the characters presented by this form are such as to 
render it by far the most remarkable among all the types of Te- 
cent crinoids, whether stalked or free. Of the four distinguishing 
characters of this crinoid, which Carpenter calls 7haumatorcinus 
renovatus, one appears in one or perhaps in two genera of Coma- 
tulz, another is not to be met with in any Comatula, though 
occurring in certain stalked Crinoids; while the two remaining 
characters are limited to one family of the Palzocrinoids, one o 
them being peculiar to one or at most two genera which are con- 
fined to the lower Silurian rocks. Their appearance in such a 
Specialized type as a recent Comatula is therefore, he adds, all the 
More striking. this connection may be mentioned the 
French deep sea expedition of the Talisman, which sailed June 
Ist, and was to visit the Canaries, Cape Verd islands, Azores and 
intermediate waters. 
Worms.—At a recent meeting of the French Academy L. 
