SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
235 
the same time a mastax, well-marked water-vessels, and reproductive organs. 
The young female differs totally from the adult in the possession of a ciliary 
apparatus, distinct eyes, and also in its free habit of life. The adult male 
is, as in other rotifers, quite unlike the female. He has a broad ciliated oval 
extremity, provided with eyes, and apparently a large prse-oral ganglion, 
while his body gradually tapers to a point posteriorly provided with a few 
cilia. 
New Myriapoda. — Sir John Lubbock, in a paper read before the Linneean 
Society at a late meeting, described a new genus of myriapoda, which he 
thinks ought to be the type of a new order of this class. It is called Pau- 
ropus, from the circumstance that it possesses far fewer legs than its fellow 
genera. The author of the paper met with two species, P. Huxleyi and 
P. pedunculatus. The first is the type of the genus : it is about — of an inch 
long. It occurs in considerable numbers among dead leaves and in other 
accumulations of decaying organic substances. Though not exactly sociable 
in its habits, it exhibits none of that extreme ferocity which characterises the 
chilopoda. It is very abundant in the author’s garden at High Elms. Sir 
John Lubbock wonders how it has been so long overlooked, but attributes 
it to the fact that its small size and few legs give it the appearance of some 
insect larva. The characters of Pauropus we cannot afford space for, but they 
deserve attention, for they are peculiarly exceptional and serve to show that 
Pauropus is allied to the Crustacea. 
The Fishes of the Amazon. — The district of the Amazon appears to swarm 
with all forms of organic life. Of the land animals a very able and graphic 
account has already been given by Mr. Bates, and now Professor Agassiz has 
given an account of his elaborate investigation of the fish of the Amazon. 
In a lecture delivered quite recently at New York, Professor Agassiz stated 
that he found that the Amazon has not one fish in common with any 
other fresh-water basin ; that different parts of the Amazon have fishes 
peculiar to themselves ; and, as an instance of the teeming variety that exists 
in the Amazon basin, he gave the result of his examination of a small con- 
tiguous lake or pool, of only a few hundred square yards, which showed 
!200 different kinds of fishes, which is three times as many as the Mississippi 
liver can boast. In the Amazon itself he found 2,000 different kinds, and 
when he began his investigation of the river only 150 were known to exist, 
and he said that in proportion as he found the larger number the difference 
between them seem to grow. He proceeded to a general classification of the 
fishes of the Amazon, and instanced one that might appropriately be called 
a very peculiar fish, inasmuch as it had the power of walking or creeping on 
dry land, one having been foimd five miles from the water, and the Professor 
himself kept one of them out of water half a day, and on putting it back 
into its natural element it showed as much of life as if it had never been 
removed. Moreover, it is an agile fish, worming its way up the inclined 
plane of the trunk of some old tree that had fallen, and twisting about 
among the branches, until finally a single shot has brought down a bird and 
a fish together. Professor Agassiz declared that the Amazon, for a river of 
turbid water and of so high a temperature, the average being 80 deg., nou- 
rishes an extraordinary number of delicious fishes for table use. 
Influence of Development in the Production of Pace. — M. C. Dareste has just 
