Notes. 
i88o.j 
347 
of Pinus and Thuja chlorophyll is formed in the absence of light 
at the expense of the nutritive matter previously stored up. 
Prof. E. D. Cope points out (“ American Naturalist ”) that, in 
accordance with what he calls the “ Doctrine of the Unspecial- 
ised, ” the perfection produced by each successive age has not 
been the parent of future perfection. The largest and most 
perfectly armed animals (*.,g., machairodon) have been the first 
to succumb upon a change of circumstances. The lines ot 
ancestry of the existing higher Mammalia commenced with 
types of small size. 
In a memoir presented to the Academy of Sciences, M. H. 
Toussaint shows that tuberculosis is easily transmitted by the 
ingestion of tubercular matter, by heredity or by suckling, by 
inoculation, and even by simple cohabitation. 
According to the experiments of Popoff, yeast proves rapidly 
fatal if introduced into the blood of vertebrate animals. 
M. Giard (“ Comptes Rendus,” xc., p. 504) points out that the 
parasitic fungus Entomophtliora has recently caused an epidemic 
among insects of the genus Syrphus , which are amongst our best 
destroyers of Aphides. 
MM. J. Bechamp and E. Baltus, in a memoir read before the 
French Academy of Sciences, state that pancreatin, if injected 
into the veins of an animal, occasions serious functional derange- 
ment, and may prove fatal if the proportion reaches 0-15 gnu. 
per kilo, of the weight of the subject operated upon. 
M. Domeyko mentions (“ Comptes Rendus,” xc., p. 504) that 
the guano of Mejillones contains a considerable proportion of 
boric acid. 
Dr. E. Erlenmeyer gives, in the “ Bienen Zeitung,” details of 
experiments showing that bees elaborate their wax from non- 
azotised matter. Carbo-hydrates serve also for the production 
of the fat found in the body of the bee. The food of these in- 
sects should not be very rich in nitrogenous matter. 
Dr. Haberlandt, in the “ CEster. Landwith. Wockenblatt,” in 
treating of the cultivation of red clover, urges agriculturists to 
act upon the discoveries of Darwin, and protect the humble-bees 
necessary for the fertilisation of the blossoms of this plant. 
Wemich, Baumann, and Nencki find it highly probable that 
bacteria are destroyed by certain products of the putrefaction to 
which they have themselves given rise. This conclusion seems 
to throw a light upon the course of certain epidemic diseases, 
the bacteria which have occasioned the affection being poisoned 
by the morbid products generated. When this has taken place 
the patient recovers, unless his vitality has been already ex- 
hausted. 
