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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
normal character. In the pigs, on the other hand, the terminal phalanges of 
the toes have become united in the middle line, producing a single broad 
terminal phalanx, above which, however, the other phalanges of the toes 
remain perfectly distinct. Dr. Coues says , 11 The upshot of this modification 
of the foot is that a strictly artiodactyle animal is transformed into an im- 
perfect perissodactyle one and from the characters presented by the terminal 
phalanx, even in a young animal, he is of opinion that its condition is not 
the result of progressive confluence of the two bones, but of their original 
connation.” The horny hoof encases the bones as far as the distal extremities 
of the proximal phalanges, and is perfectly solid, although in front there is 
a slight vertical line indicating the limits of the two halves. On the sole of 
the hoof there is a broad, angular elevation of horny substance, apex forward, 
and shaped so as to be curiously like the frog of the horse’s hoof. 
The occurrence of solid hoofs in the pig, as of cleft hoofs in horses and 
asses, has already been observed occasionally, but in the case of these pigs a 
regular solidungulate breed appears to have been established, and so firmly 
that no tendency to revert to the original form is observed in them. Mr. 
Marnock, of Helotes, Bexar County, who has furnished Dr. Coues with in- 
formation and specimens, states u that the cross of a solid-hoofed boar with 
a sow of the ordinary type produces a litter the majority of which show 
the peculiarity of the male parent.” 
A New Chimcera. — Mr. T. Gill has announced his recognition of a new 
American species of the curious genus Chimcera , which he proposes to name 
C. plumbea. It is of a uniform lead colour, with the snout acutely pro- 
duced, the anteorbital flexure of the suborbital line extending a little above 
the level of the inferior border of the orbit, the dorsals close together, the 
dorsal spine rounded in front, the ventrals triangular and pointed, and the 
pectorals reaching the outer axil of the ventrals. The only known specimen of 
this fish, which is a most interesting addition to the Atlantic fauna, was 
taken south-east of the La Have bank, at a depth of 350 fathoms, with a bait 
of halibut. — Silliman’s Journal , March 1878. 
The Mosquito an Intermediate Bearer of Human Parasites. — On the 12th 
of January it was first publicly announced that the female mosquito had 
been found capable of sucking up the young of Filaria sanguinis hominis 
(F. Bancrofti, Cobbold) when feeding on persons whose blood happened to 
contain these parasites (haematozoa). The discovery, for as such we must 
now regard it, was due to Dr. Patrick Manson, who acts as physician to the 
Missionary Hospital at Amoy, China. So far back as the year 1866, the 
late Dr. Wiicherer detected a little nematode worm in the urine of a patient. 
He was at the time in search of the haematozoon known as Bilharzia 
hcematobia. Curiously enough, he did not find the Bilharzia ; nevertheless, 
only a few years later (1872) Dr. Cobbold, when engaged in examining the 
urine of a little girl from Natal, who passed thousands of Bilharzia eggs 
daily, encountered the embryonic nematode worm that Wiicherer had 
been the first to observe. About the same time Dr. Lewis also detected the 
worm in a chylurous patient, and later on he made the remarkable discovery 
that the same microscopic nematode infested human blood. A few years 
afterwards Dr. Bancroft n< t only discovered the haematozoon, as such, in 
Australia, but on December 21, 1876, he made the important discovery of 
