No. 428.] NOTES AND LITERATURE. 669 

Direction of Hair. — Students of general biology will be inter- 
ested in Kidd’s* studies on the direction of hair as evidence of the 
inheritance of an acquired character. The author points out that 
the hair slope of an individual may be modified during life. The 
hair streams of mammals are disposed in lines of least resistance, 
and yet are of so little importance to the animal that they cannot be 
regarded as produced by selection, — natural, sexual, or germinal. 
As they have arisen through the mechanical influence of the envi- 
ronment and have been handed on from generation to generation, 
they afford what the author believes to be a good example of the 
inheritance of acquired characters. 
Alcyonaria of the Azores.? — The explorations of the Hironde/le 
about the Azores, the Gulf of Gascogne, and Terre Neuve brought to 
light thirty-eight species, of which nineteen were new. The Alcyo- 
naria from the Azores are increased from six to twenty-nine, of which 
twelve were new, and the total for the Atlantic between Madeira and 
the arctic circle reaches one hundred and sixty-six. Six species 
found at the Azores have been taken in the West Indies or off the 
coasts of North America, which is about the same proportion of 
American species found among the mollusks of the Azores in the 
collections of the Hirondelle. The American species are all from 
depths below 500 meters, while those peculiar to the eastern parts of 
the Atlantic come mainly from levels above 400 meters. The abyssal 
forms are thus the only ones common to America and the Azores. 
The occurrence near the Azores of several species from the Mediter- 
ranean serves to emphasize still further the dependency of its fauna 
upon that of the Atlantic. The genus Calypterinus is rejected and 
its species transferred to St hyodes, the supposed generic distincti 
being due to a pathological condition caused by the presence of an 
annelid, one of the Eunicidze, in a furrow of the trunk. CAKE 


Corals of the Pacific.* — The author finds that the corals of Hawaii 
and Laysan are principally Porites, Pollicipora, and Montipora. The 
! Kidd, W. Use-Inheritance illustrated by the Direction of Hair on the Bodies 
of Animals. London, A. and C. Black, 1901. 47 pp. 
? Studer, Th. Alcyonaires provenant des campagnes de l'Zrende//e, 1886— 
1888, Result. des campagn. scient. Albert de Monaco, fasc. 20, 1901. 4to, 64 pp., 
II pls. 
? Studer, Th. Ergebnisse einer Reise nach dem Pacific (Schauinsland, 
1896-1897 ), Madreporarier von Samoa, den Sandwich-Inseln und Laysan, Zoo/. 
Jahrb., Abth. f. Syst., Bd. xiv (1901), pp. 388-428, Taf. XXV-XXXI. 
