i88ij 
Notes. 
179 
According to Biedermann’s “ Central-Blatt ” the fat of animals 
in a natural condition is richer in solid fatty bodies than that of 
such as have been artificially fattened, and is therefore preferable 
for use in manufactures. 
Mr. F. M. Webster, of the Illinois State Laboratory of Natural 
History, is engaged with some interesting researches on the food 
of beetles, considered from an economical point of view. He 
finds that many of the Geodephaga are less exclusively carnivo- 
rous than has been taken for granted, and are even occasionally 
injurious by destroying seeds, the stems of plants, &c. He con- 
firms the Aphis-eating character of the Telephoridae. 
The Council of the Entomological Society of London has 
formally petitioned against the proposed railway from Chingford 
to High Beech, as calculated to lay waste a part of Epping Forest 
very interesting to naturalists. 
According to Dr. E. C. Spitzka (“ Science ” and “ St. Louis 
Clinical Record”), in “ Schenck’s Lehrbuch der vergleichenden 
Embryologie der Wirbelthiere,” p. 137, is figured a section taken 
flatwise through the embryonic human paw. The chondrogenic 
elements of the mesoblast can be seen arranged in strands, indi- 
cating the metacarpo-phalangeal rays. A sixth ray seems very 
clearly present. At different periods these cell-strands are not 
five, but from seven to nine in number. This fact points to the 
descent of man and the pentadactylous animals from the Enalio- 
saurians or analogous groups of the Jurassic and Triassic Epochs, 
whose remains show seven or more fin-rays. Hensen, of Kiel, 
found in the human embryo of the seventh week the fingers and 
toes provided with claws like those of the Carnivora, which 
are exfoliated to make way for true nails. He found also plantar 
and palmar eminences, like the foot-pads of the dog, cat, and 
carnivorous marsupials. 
The “ American Naturalist ” declares “ the cultivators of na- 
tural history imbibe their early love for Nature during their 
out-of-door early life in the country. Nearly all our leading 
naturalists were country-bred boys.” 
H. Michels has investigated, with great care and exactness, 
the changes of the nervous system of Coleoptera during their 
metamorphosis. 
The Emperor of Germany has defrayed the expense of the 
excavations at Olympia out of his private purse. 
An article in the “ Kansas City Review of Science,” criticising 
the philosophy of Mr. Herbert Spencer, contends that there is 
beneath the laws and forms of nature an Agency to which design 
and purpose can scarcely be denied. 
