190 Scientific Intelligence . — Zoology. 
two, or who have had their legs carried off; facts of this sort 
would require to be well attested. All these rows of crenulated 
teeth, directed toward the posterior part, appear more especially 
destined to tear and to overcome the efforts of a victim still li- 
ving in the gulf which has swallowed it up. The Squali could 
only break and dismember a man, when there were several of 
them pulling in contrary directions. It was thus that our un- 
fortunate companion Robinet met his death, in a truly horrible 
manner at Cayenne ; for, bathing imprudently in an exposed sit- 
tion, he was carried off, and devoured by these monsters. On 
the following day his limbs were found scattered upon the beach. 
We imagine their sense of smell to be very highly developed. 
The delicacy, however, does not lead them to follow ships in 
which there are sick people, as the sailors allege. They never 
appear but in calms ; and, however little the sails are filled, they 
are soon left behind. It would be a waste of time to expose all 
the puerilities connected with the subject of sharks. Many sea- 
faring people still have their imagination filled with those mar- 
vellous accounts which the first navigators gave of every thing 
that struck their attention in distant countries .” — Quoy and Gai - 
mard, in Annales des Sc. Nat., for Dec. 1 824. 
19. Durability of Human Hair. — M. Pictet of Geneva late- 
ly instituted a comparison between recent human hair, and 
that from a mummy brought from Teneriffe, with reference to 
the constancy of those properties which render hair important 
as a hygrometric substance. For this purpose, hygrometers 
constructed according to the principles of Saussure, were used, 
one with a fresh hair, the other from the mummy. The results 
of the experiments were, that the hygrometric quality of the 
Guanche hair is sensibly the same as that of recent hair. 
20. Fossil and Live Shells of the same species differ , according 
to Locality, Distance, Sfc . — It has been remarked, that the same 
fossil shells found in places at a distance from each other, al- 
ways exhibit some differences in their form, the deepness of 
their grooves, the degree of projection of their spines, &c. Mr 
Basterodt affirms the same to be the case with living species, as he 
found that they do not exhibit the same characters in places sepa- 
rated at considerable distances from each other, or even in near 
