( 1X2 ) 
[February, 
NOTES. 
Dr. Lund (“ Comptes Rendus ”) has discovered fossil human 
skulls in the caverns of Lagoa Santa. He considers that in 
America, as well as in Europe, man existed along with various 
mammals now extindt. The Brazilian skulls are distinguished 
from those found in Europe by a combination of dolicocephalism 
and of hypsistenocephalism. 
M. E. Bourquelot shows, in a communication to the Academy 
of Sciences, that the liver and the pancreas of the Cephalopods 
produce, or at least contain, a ferment which has no adtion upon 
crude starch, but which transforms hydrated starch into sugar. 
M. Jobert (“ Comptes Rendus ”) has brought to light a re- 
markable instance of parthenogenesis in Eumolpus vitce, a Chry- 
somelid beetle very destructive to the vine. The author has 
dissected 3728 specimens without finding a single male. The 
11 samen kapsel ” of the females never contains spermatozoids, 
yet the eggs are always fertile. 
Mr. E. A. Axon (“ Comptes Rendus ”) gives cases of deaf- 
mutes who on being taught to articulate were found to have the 
peculiar accent of their native district, which they had never 
heard. Some naturalist would call this “ instinct I” 
M. Brown-Sequard, in a communication to the Academy of 
Sciences, concludes that a number of parts of the nervous sys- 
tem may act suddenly, or very rapidly, in a purely dynamic 
manner, and without the intervention of nutrition upon other 
parts of this system, so as to increase the power of action of the 
latter. 
The conclusions drawn from the recent French dredging expe- 
dition in the Mediterranean are that this sea cannot be considered 
as forming a distinct geological province, but that it has been 
peopled by immigration from the ocean. 
MM. Grasset and Amblard (“ Comptes Rendus ”) maintain, as 
the result of recent experiments, that morphine is not diametric- 
ally opposed to thebaine, but has to a certain degree the charac- 
teristic property of the latter. The excitometer effedts of opium 
must not be exclusively ascribed to the “ convulsivant ” alka- 
loids, but in part to those which are considered soporific. The 
adtion of moiphia upon Mammalia is not opposed to its adtion 
upon the frog. 
