SCIENTIFIC SUMMA-EY. 
685 
experiments, Mr. L. Trouvelot, of Medford, Mass., U.S., has succeeded in 
rearing, successfully, and in great numbers, Attacus Polyphemus, Linn., and 
in preparing from its cocoon an excellent quality of silk, possessing great 
lustre and strength, and pronounced superior to Japanese and all other silks, 
except the best Chinese, by competent judges. The silk is unwound by a 
simple process perfected by Mr. Trouvelot, each cocoon yielding about 1,500 
yards. This insect is very hardy, being found throughout the Northern 
States and Canada ; and, as it feeds upon the leaves of oak, maple, 
willow, and other common forest trees, may be reared easilj" in an}^ part of 
the country. Mr. Trouvelot has gradually increased his stock from year 
to year, by raising young from the eggs of the few individuals first captured, 
until he has at present seven waggon-loads of cocoons, the entire progeny of 
which he proposes to raise during the coming season. 
A Nev) Actinozoon. — At one of the last sessional meetings of the Dublin 
Microscopical Club, Dr. E. Perceval Wright exhibited a small actinozoon, 
which he believed either to belong to the genus Haimeia (Milne-Edwards), 
or, more likely still, to be undescribed. All the Alcyvnarian Actinozoa are 
gregarious — giving rise by budding to variously shaped masses ; some of the 
best known forms being the genera Alcyonium, Virgularia, Pennatula, &c. ; but 
in the first sub-family, CornulariadDe, the polypes are not as a rule very much 
aggregated. In the polype now exhibited there was, however, no trace of a 
ccjenosarc, though it had been under observation for some months, and this 
alone was sufiicient to assign it to the division of Cornulariadae, distinguished 
by the polypes being “ simple, not aggregated, tubular, and retractile.” The 
question then was, did it belong to the only genus thus typified ? but 
unfortunately this genus is described by none save negative qualities, and 
the species has for its diagnosis Polypieroide hruncdre liaut de 3 oii 4 
millimetres^^ which is totally insufficient to characterize a species. There 
can be no doubt as to the individual exhibited being an adult form — the 
characteristic alcyonarian spicules are found both at the base of the polype and 
along and at the base of the tentacles : these latter are completly retractile. 
Should this form not constitute a new species of Haimeia, it is projDosed to 
form it into a new genus called Hartea, after the gentleman who kindly sent 
it to Dr. Wright, along with other marine creatures, from Eathmullen, 
County Donegal. 
The Anatomy of Nycticehus. — In the elaborate memoir on this subject 
which has been written by Mr. St. George Mivart, of St. Mary’s Hospital 
and Dr. Murie, the prosector to the Zoological Society, the authors thus 
sum up the more important structural characters of the animal dissected by 
them : — If we sum up the results of our investigation upon the anatomy of 
Nycticehus tardigradus, we are led to note the interesting peculiarities 
offered by the muscles of the limbs, — on the one hand, the reappearance, and, 
as it were, exaggeration of that anthropoid muscle, the flexor longus poUicis ; 
on the other hand, its resemblance, by the interlacements of its tendons with 
those of the flexor profundus, to the conditions always offered by the foot in 
Primates — a resemblance which has already been noticed by Professor 
Huxley in his Hunterian Lectures for 18G4. We are also struck with the 
almost atrophied gastrocnemius, but concomitantly augmented flexor longus 
communis, which last, inverting the analogy of the flexor longus pollicis, 
VOL. IV. — NO. XVII. 2 7. 
