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The Museum Gazette 



fresh fungi. Some fungi last for months and some for years, 

 gradually growing. Some become actually woody. 



Nails without Fingers. — Sydney Smith said of his ancestors 

 that they had no arms but sealed their letters with their 

 thumbs. It is literally true of certain animals that they have 

 finger-nails although they have no fingers. In the Manatee 

 and Dugong all the digits are webbed together into a fin, but 

 upon this fin rudimentary nails are produced. In explanation 

 of this we must remember that the nails are modified parts 

 of the skin and are not formed in connection with the bones. 

 Not unfrequently in human malformations nails are formed 

 when the digits are undeveloped. 



The Agouti. — The agouti, like the guinea-pig of which it is a 

 relation, is a South American rodent. The upper lip is entire, 

 the ears short, the tail short and naked, and the fore-limbs 

 have five toes, each protected by a hoof-claw. They resemble 

 on the one hand slender-limbed pigs, and on the other 

 small musk-deer. On the hind-limbs they have only three 

 toes. Agoutis run well and can spring like antelopes. They 

 feed on vegetables. They are somewhat solitary in their 

 habits, living alone in their cells, which they leave only in 

 the evening. 



The Family of Bats. — It is possible that the Bat family 

 might teach us something in reference to the influence of food 

 on character. One division of it lives wholly on vegetable 

 food, another on insects, and a third wholly on blood. The 

 blood-sucking bat has so small a gullet that little excepting 

 fluid could pass through it, and it does not possess a stomach 

 which could accommodate solid matters. The gullet is con- 

 tinuous with the intestine without any stomach cavity and 

 without any pylorus. There is, however, a curious append- 

 age or diverticulum from the upper (cardiac) end of the 

 stomach which looks like a coil of intestine, but really ends 

 in a cul de sac. It resembles the appendix vermiformis but 

 is much longer. This appendix, no doubt, receives the blood 

 for digestion. 



