i 882 .j 
Notes. 
ii5 
species the decomposition of the albumenoids is effedted accord- 
ing to special equations. This decomposition being probably 
connected with the phenomena of hydration, rather than of oxida- 
tion, the ingestion or the privation of oxygen makes little dif- 
ference. 
Prof. Elsberg (“ Science ”) proposes the term “ plastid ” in 
place of “ cell.” 
M. Grand’ Eury, in a communication to the Academy of 
Sciences, maintains that during the Palaeozoic epoch the Ural 
Mountains separated two seas. 
H. Sprung (“ Naturforscher ”) considers that there may be 
traced a daily periodicity in the direction and in the force of the 
wind. 
M. Carl Vogt (“ Comptes Rendus ”) has examined the alleged 
meteoric organisms of M. Hahn, and finds that they are produced 
merely by crystalline conformations, purely inorganic. 
(This announcement will for the present extinguish much 
speculation as to the dawn of life upon our globe. The “ moss- 
covered fragment ” must again be banished to the realms of 
conjedture.) 
M. V. Lemoine (“ Comptes Rendus ”) describes the Gastornis , 
a gigantic fossil bird with wings unfit for flight, but which may 
possibly have served for swimming. This bird has some analo- 
gies with the Cursores and the Palmipedes, but forms, upon the 
whole, a type distindf from all known at present, and is in many 
respedts reptilian. 
M. Laulanie (“ Comptes Rendus ”) shows that the specific 
agent of tuberculosis adts in the same manner as the ova of 
Strongylus vasorum. 
According to M. Paul Bert (“Journal de Therapeutique ”) spe- 
cial venoms are secreted by the toad, salamander, newt, frog, &c. 
From the glands on the neck of the frog he has collected a liquid 
which if injedted into a sparrow occasions death with convulsions, 
the heart being arrested in systole. 
M. W. G. Levison, of Brooklyn, has examined the spedfrum 
of the light of the firefly (? species). He finds that the blue and 
violet rays are absent, and that the less refrangible rays pre- 
dominate. 
MM. A. Dumontpallier and P. Magnin (“ Comptes Rendus ”) 
consider that there exists in the dorso-lumbar region of the 
spinal marrow an inter-crossing of the sentient and motor fibres, 
which accounts for the simultaneous movement of an anterior 
member of the one side and a posterior member of the other. 
(These movements, however, are not stridUy simultaneous.) 
