SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
539 
puscles of vertebrates. These corpuscles have the form of colourless nucleated 
cells, circular in outline, and disk-like in form. The blood flows regularly in a 
definite direction ; it passes from behind forwards along the walls of the body, 
and then travels in the opposite direction in the neighbourhood of the in- 
testine. The movement is in great part maintained by clusters of cilia 
situate on the surface of the intestine and the mesenteric folds. The circula- 
tory apparatus in S. obscurus is composed of an undulated reddish tube, 
which lies below the first or simple portion of the digestive canal. In 
K gigas this tube is double ; in fact, a second vessel may be seen below the 
first division of the alimentary canal. Posteriorly this single or double tube 
terminates in an inflated cul-de-sac. Anteriorly, it opens into the circular 
sinus which surrounds the pharynx, and which communicates freely with the 
tentacular crown. The walls of the circulatory tube are supplied with 
muscular fibre, and are consequently contractile ; but the contained blood is 
set in motion rather by ciliary action than by any operation of the vessels. — 
Vide Comptes Rejiclus, May 15th. 
A Neiv Gall-producing Insect, which is parasitic upon the common creep- 
ing rye-grass, was described by Mr. W. Couper, some time since, at a meeting 
of the Quebec Entomological Society. The species belongs to the Hymen- 
optera, or Bee order. As soon as the larva issues from the egg, it places its 
head downwards in the gall, remaining in that position till it eats its way 
through. About the end of September it ceases to feed, and prepares to meet 
a Canadian winter. By this time the gall is hardened, and the larvae remain 
in a torpid state, becoming active again in the spring, and changing to perfect 
insects in time to attack the young grass of the season. The Baron Osten 
Sacken, to whom Mr. Couper’s specimens were transmitted for identification, 
regards the insect as belonging to the genus Eurytoma, but is unable to say 
whether it is E. fulvipes or not. — ^Vide The Canadian Naturalist and 
Geologist, New Series, vol. i., No. 6. 
The Mammalian Brain Controversy. — In a recently published number of 
the “ Proceedings ” of the Koyal Society, we observe a report of Professor 
Owen’s paper on the anatomy of certain portions of the marsupial brain, 
and Mr. W. H. Flower’s reply thereto. The Professor, who gave his paper 
a somewhat vague title, made a very decided attack upon the Conservator 
of the Museum of the College of Surgeons. He accused this gentleman of 
mis-stating his (Professor Owen’s) view, and of borrowing his ideas. To those 
to whom Mr. Flower is personally known, such charges appeared mifair ; but 
inasmuch as any assertion of so distinguished a man as Professor Owen 
carries a considerable weight with it, it became necessary for Mr. Flower to 
repudiate them. From a perusal of the two communications, we feel justified 
in stating that Professor Owen’s charges are entirely unfounded. It seems 
to us, too, that Professor Owen left the readers of his former papers to 
imagine that among the Marsupialia and Monotremata the cerebral hemi- 
spheres are not united by a corpus callosum. 
The Classification of the Annelida is a subject on which a valuable essay 
has appeared from the pen of M. de Quatrefages. The memoir is far too long 
to give even an abstract of it, but we may mention that the writer, whose 
taxological scheme occupies nine quarto pages, divides the entire class into 
two orders, four sub-orders, twenty-six families, and 181 genera. The 
