SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
393 
conclusions were specially drawn as those most important to be borne in 
mind. In some respects they agree very closely with the views expressed by 
M. Quatrefages'in his excellent treatise on the “ Metamorphoses of Man and 
the Lower Animals ” : — 1. That the presence of metamorphoses in insects 
depends, in great measure at least, upon the early state in which they quit 
the egg. 2. That metamorphoses are of two kinds — developmental and 
adaptational. 3. That the apparent abruptness of the changes which they 
undergo arises in great measure from the hardness of their skin, which 
permits no gradual alteration of form, and which is itself rendered necessary 
in order to afford sufficient support to the muscles. 4. That the immobility 
of the pupa or chrysalis depends on the rapidity of the changes going on in 
it. 5. That although the majority of insects go through three well-marked 
stages after leaving the egg, still a large number arrive at maturity through 
a somewhat indefinite number of slight changes. 6. That the form of the 
larva of each species depends in great measure on the conditions in which it 
lives. When an animal is hatched from the egg in an immature form, the 
external forces acting upon it are different from those which affect the mature 
form, and thus changes are produced in the young, bearing reference to its 
present wants rather than to its ultimate form. 7. When the external 
organs arrive at this final form before the organs of reproduction are matured, 
these changes are known as metamorphoses ; when, on the contrary, the 
organs of reproduction are functionally perfect before the external organs, 
or when the creature has the power of budding, then the phenomenon is 
known as alternation of generations. Insects present every gradation, from 
simple growth to alternation of generations. 8. Thus, then, it appears pro- 
bable that this remarkable phenomenon may have arisen from the simple 
circumstance that certain animals leave the egg at a very early stage of 
development, and that the external forces acting on the young are different 
from those which affect the mature form. 9. The dimorphism thus produced 
differs in many important respects from the dimorphism of the mature form 
which we find, for instance, in the ants and bees ; and it would therefore be 
convenient to distinguish it by a different name. 
The Physiological Phenomenon known as the Voice of Fish. — In a very 
bombastically-written memoir on this subject, M. Dufosse observes, — It 
would be a misapplication of the physiological definition of the word voice 
to use that word for the purpose of designating sounds so very different one 
from another as those of fish. 5 ’ He therefore proposes to sum up all the phe- 
nomena of voice in fishes under the terrible title of ichthyopsophosy. — See 
Comptes Pendus, April 30. 
Some remarkable Muscles in Monkeys. — In a paper read before the Natural 
History Society of Dublin, on the 5th of April, Dr. A. Macalister recorded 
some interesting points in the anatomy of Quadrumana. The subjoined is a 
brief abstract of his paper : — The arrangement of the muscles in all animals 
indicates the existence of an ideal archetype, of which the various individual 
series are modifications, and of this type there are numerous and definite 
modifications in each class of animals, so as to constitute class or even generic 
distinctions. The Quadrumana, or monkeys, have usually in this respect 
some definite characteristics of muscular arrangement ; such as the absence 
of an opponent muscle, and also of a distinct long flexor for the thumb, the 
