738- General Notes. 
several years ago. A large and highly colored buck of the Cari- — 
acus virginianus was shot in Central New Jersey, in which the — 
horns of both sides were completely and symmetrically palmated 
as in the moose. This modification of horns of Cariacus is just 
what is to be expected in accordance with law of “ acceleration,’ 
and constitutes an actual transfer of such modified individuals to 
the genus Alces. The genera Alces and Cariacus agree with 
other American deer in the absence of the brow antler, and. i 
Alces stands at the head of the series by virtue of its palmation. 
If a similar change were to take place in a true deer of the genus 
Cervus, the result would be a Dama, a genus which agrees with 
Cervus in the possession of a brow antler, and differs from it as 
Alces does from Cariacus, z. e., in its palmation. Instances of 
this kind show the correctness of the position I took in 1868, 
that the change of generic characters is independent of that of 
the specific, and that one species may come, by acceleration i 
some of its individuals, to belong to two genera.—E. D. Cope. 
ForsytH Major on THE True Pics.—In the Zoologischer Aw 
zeiger, June, 1883, the above well known palzontologist gives an 
account of the recent species of true pigs with their extinct con- 
nections. He limits the existing species to three: Sus verrucosus 
M. and S. (Java, Celebes), S. darbatus M. and S. (Borneo), end : 
scrofa L. He regards the S. vittatus M. and S. as a form of 
scropha, and finds that it has seventeen synonyms. These often 
represent minor variations of character, which do not form wie! 
stant combinations. They are, as a whole, characteristic of im- 
mature conditions of the S.scropha of northern regions. o s 
Major regards the S. vit/atus as the primitive form. The te 
rucosus is nearly related to the S. giganteus Falc. of the Si 
and the S. strvzzit Menegh. of the Val d’Arno. 
ZooLocicaL Nortes.—Mollusks—H. L. Osborn ean per 
Lab. J. Hopk. Univ.), gives the results of his studies of the £! 
of some prosobranchiate mollusca. Starting with the a aby 
that the researches of Peck and Mitsukuri have made it to'® 
of some lamellib 
are derivable from a simple series of folds of the body closely 
summarizes thus: “ The gill of Chiton and Fissurella pee type 
like the ctenidium which Lankester considers the prim! 
. ersally, the gill 
of molluscan gill. In ctenobranchs, almost univ form com- 
is not a ctenidium, but a very much simpler organ Be d as 
pares closely with the gill which we have come to pior that the 
primitive lamellibranch gill.” He inclines to the beli 
lamellibranchiata are degraded from cephaloppa "i d , 
nctions besides Han a 
while their highly complex gills are due to 
the animal throwing upon the gills sundry fu 
of the gill proper. 
1 In “ The Origin of Genera.” 
