1879 - 
( 76i 
NOTES 
Biology. 
In a communication to the Academy of Sciences, M. L. Vaillant 
remarks that the fecundity of axolots being no longer contested, 
we are compelled to regard them not as a pathological modifica- 
tion, — an opinion still admitted by certain foreign savants , — but 
as a normal metamorphosis conformable to the cycle habitually 
known among the Urodeles. These animals, under certain con- 
ditions not yet determined, appear to reproduce themselves in 
two states — as larvae and when completely developed. This is a 
fadt not unexampled among the inferior Vertebrates and certain 
Articulates, as remarked by M. Blanchard in 1868 ( see “ Comptes 
Rendus de la Reunion de la Soc. Helvetique ”). 
M. Galtier has undertaken a series of experimental studies on 
rabies, and has recorded the results in the “ Comptes Rendus.” 
He finds that rabies may be transferred from the dog to the 
rabbit, and from one rabbit to another, the predominant symp- 
toms being paralysis and convulsions. It is impossible to say 
whether the virus of the rabbit has the same intensity of adtion 
as that of the dog. The period of “ incubation ” in the rabbit is 
shorter than in other animals, not exceeding eighteen days. 
Salicylic acid injedted hypodermically every day for a fortnight, 
beginning with the fiftieth hour after inoculation, has not been 
found to interfere with the development of the disease. The 
saliva of a mad dog, taken from the living animal and kept in 
water, retains its virulence for twenty-four hours. (It is often 
asserted that the deaths of human subjedts after being bitten by 
a rabid dog, ascribed to hydrophobia, are really due to a morbid 
imagination. We wonder if this plea will serve to explain the 
deaths of the rabbits experimented upon as above.) 
According to MM. Callol de Poncy and Ch. Livon, in cases of 
chronic arsenical poisoning this element takes the place of the 
phosphorus normally present in the lecithin in the form of 
phospho-glyceric acid. 
Prof. Balbiani gives an account, in “ Leqons sur la Generation 
des Vertebres,” of the embryogenous cellule or vesicule which 
has been detedted by many observers in the ova of various 
animal groups, vertebrate and invertebrate. He considers it as 
analogous to a seminal cellule which must exert upon the ovum 
an adtion similar to that of a spermatozoid. In many animals, 
it must be remembered, these elements have not the filamental 
form and are devoid of mobility. This is the case with most of 
