SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
227 
or folds in the membranes, either within or beyond the focus of the object- 
glass- 
Slaughter of Penguins and Seals. — The “ Journal of Applied Science ” 
(Nov.) gives an account of this, as conducted in the Falkland Islands. During 
the whole of August and beginning of September large and countless flocks 
of penguins come from all directions to the Falkland Islands, and where 
they alight the ground is literally covered with them. This periodical 
migration is for purposes of reproduction. The people who make a business 
of killing these birds for their oil, proceed about this time in schooners 
capable of weathering the storms that are so common at this season. 
Besides a small crew, these schooners have on hoard a “ copotar,” with a 
gang of from twelve to fifteen men. Their only arm is a short stick. On 
the island to which they repair they find a rough kind of furnace that has 
been used the previous year, and which seems to heat one or more iron 
boilers, each of which is capable of holding as much as 250 gallons of oil. 
These islands are leased from the Colonial Government for five years at a 
small rent, and every exporting house has several rookeries, which are 
respected by the rest. The penguin-hunters are generally at their post 
before the arrival of their intended victims, and when these arrive and 
drop on the ground by millions, the men go among them and commit great 
havoc upon the tired birds, heaped together, whose wings are intended more 
as helps to swim than to fly. After the lapse of five or six hours of 
incessant slaughter, the “ copotar ” and his men generally have got enough 
of birds for one night’s boiling. Each man immediately picks up a cer- 
tain number of the dead birds, and begins to skin them. This operation is 
done by making a cut in the belly, and, with a peculiar knack, the whole 
skin, with feathers and all, comes off the bird at one pull. The account 
goes on further, but space will not permit us a longer abstract. 
Abdominal Antennce of Insects {Sense Organs '). — Mr. A. S. Packard, jun., 
writes on this subject in the “American Naturalist ” for December. After 
referring to Dr. Anton Dohrn’s paper in the “Journal of the Entomological 
Society of Stettin,” 1860, he claims himself to have noticed the structures 
as early as 1866. He says he has been able to detect sense organs (probably 
endowed with the sense of smell) in the short, stout-jointed, anal stylets of 
the cockroach ( Periplaneta Americana), beautifully mounted by Mr. E. 
Bicknell. He has recently, after reading Dr. Dohrn’s note, observed the 
sense organs and counted about ninety minute orifices on each stylet, which 
are probably smelling or auditory organs, such as are described by Hicks. 
Mr. Bicknell has counted more carefully than he did the exact number of 
these pits, and made out ninety-five on one stylet and one hundred and two 
on the other, adding “there were none on the under side of their append- 
ages that he could see.” They were much larger and much more numerous 
than similar orifices in the antennae of the same insect, and were situated 
in single rows on the upper side of each joint of the stylets. During the 
breeding season a peculiar odour is perhaps emitted by the female, as in 
vertebrate animals, and it is probable that these caudal appendages are 
endowed with the sense of smell, rather than of hearing, that the male 
may smell its way to its partner. This is an argument that the broadly 
pectinated antennae of many moths are endowed rather with the sense of 
