SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
107 
whicli exists is, that in the blood-cell there is, besides, a process of oxidation 
going on which surpasses the process of reduction. Just as the chlorophyll 
of the vegetable cell absorbs carbonic acid, so does its colourless protoplasm 
absorb oxygen, and this corresponds completely to the absorption of oxygen 
by the blood-cell in the lungs. 
The Fauna of the South-west Coast of France. — Examining a great num- 
ber of specimens from dredgings and soundings off the south-west coast of 
France, M. Fischer has made out the following species of Molluscs : — 
Ncerea costellata (Deshayes) ; Fsammohia costulata (Turton) ; Lepton niti- 
dum (Jeffreys) j Leda tenuis (Phillipi) ; Area pectwieuloides (Scacchi) j 
Lima subauricidata (Montagu) ; Scissurella crispata (Fleming) ; Cyclostrema 
nitens (Phillipi) ; Rissoa soluta (Forbes) 5 Eulima bilineata (Alder) ; Man- 
gelia borealis (Loeven) ,• Mangelia elegans (Scacchi), &c. — most of which 
have not hitherto been found in France. M. Fischer points out that it 
was impossible to obtain these species along these coasts, on account of the 
shore sloping gradually towards the west, so as to form a vast terrace 
bounded by depths of more than 200 fathoms. In England and in Norway 
they are dredged a short distance from the shore at great depths. The 
existence of the submarine terrace on the French coast has made it neces- 
sary to go several leagues out to look for the deep fauna ; hence the appa- 
rent poverty of the French shore. It has been remarked by English 
authors, says M. Fischer, that a certain number, at great depths in the 
Mediterranean, are found in the English seas, without being present at 
intermediate stations ; and they have therefore concluded, without any 
geological evidence, that at the end of the tertiary epoch the Mediterranean 
communicated with the ocean by an arm of the sea traversing Aquitaine and 
Languedoc. The result of these dredgings spoils this conclusion, for it 
clearly demonstrates the continuity of the habitat of the species once con- 
sidered to be localised at points so remote. — L'lnstitut, Dec. 9. 
The relation of the Auditory Organ in Cephalophora to the Nervous Ganglia. 
— A memoir was read to the French Academy, at its first November meet- 
ing, by M. Lacaze-Duthiers, on this subject. From observation on more 
than thirty species of gasteropoda, he can no longer share the opinion of 
MM. Leydig, Claparede, and Huxley, which points so clearly to the imion of 
the otolite and the pedal ganglion. The acoustic nerve always takes its 
origin in the suboesophageal or cerebral ganglion, and though the auditory 
pouch may rest upon the locomotor pedal ganglion, its nerve never arises in 
this ganglion. So that the suboesophageal ganglion presides over all the 
organs of sense, which, to the pedal ganglion more particularly, motion is 
to be attributed. Sensibility and motor power are, therefore, distinct in 
all the groups of the cephalophorous molluscs as they are in vertebrate 
animals. 
A new Batrachian. — At the meeting of the Zoological Society, on 
Nov. 12, Mr. St. George Mivart gave a description of a new species of 
frog in his own collection, which appeared to constitute a new genus and 
species of Batrachians, and which he proposed to call Pachybatrachus 
robustus. 
Nature-painted Butterflies. — Dr. John Lowe, of Lynn, has sent us a note 
in reference to a notice in one of our recent numbers, of a collection of 
