Notes. 
668 
[October, 
Minister, formed by taking the common features underlying a 
number of adtual portraits. 
M. A. Netter has addressed to the Academy of Sciences a 
note entitled “ An Experimental Fac 5 t demonstrating that Ants 
have neither an Antennal Language nor any Exchange of Ideas.” 
The nature of the facft has not yet transpired. 
Dr. Sternburg, after examining microscopically the blood of 
yellow-fever patients at New Orleans, has been unable to find 
any “ germs ” or figured ferments which might be the cause of 
the disease. 
Prof. Alexander Agas&iz, in an able address delivered before 
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, ob- 
jected to the “ genealogical trees ” of animal groups. 
According to a memoir presented by M. J. Kunckel to the 
Academy of Sciences, the chrysalides of Lepidoptera suspend 
themselves by the hooks of the membranous anal feet, which are 
modified and adapted to particular biological conditions. 
M. Alph. Milne-Edwards reports on the dredging operations 
conducted in the Bay of Biscay by the French ship Le Travail- 
leur. As regards the Crustacea there are two supposed faunae 
which do not mix, none of the species dredged up having been 
found on the adjoining coasts. The Mollusca found at great 
depths are identical with those of the Norwegian and Arctic 
Seas. 
In “ Science,” July 24th, we find a most interesting paper by 
H. F. Jayne, on Monstrosities observed in North American 
Coleoptera. The most remarkable specimen figured is one 
of Prionus californicus, in which each femur bears two tibiae, 
duly furnished with tarsi and claws. A hasty observer would 
pronounce the insect twelve-legged. 
A race of domestic cattle found in Senegambia, belonging to 
the Zebu group (Bos indicus), present, according to M. de Roche- 
brune, the exceptional characteristic of a true horn on the nasal 
region, identical in its nature and mode of development with the 
frontal horns. It is common to both sexes, and is sometimes 
conical, but more generally takes the form of a four-sided trun- 
cated pyramid, about 2% to nearly 3 inches in height. The 
skeleton differs altogether from that of the zebus of India and 
Madagascar. The incisors have on their outside a deep 
groove. 
M. H. Filhol has presented to the Paris Academy of Sciences 
a memoir on new fossil mammals discovered in the phosphatic 
deposits of Quercy. The most interesting of these forms is 
Ailurogala acutata , a connecTing-link between the Felidae and 
the Mustelidae. 
