1885. 
Notes. 
567 
^1 he Blot upon the Brain : Studies in the History of Psycho- 
logy. It tieats of the hallucinations of Mahomet, Luther, Joan 
of Arc, Swedenborg, the insanity of the Caesars and of Ivan the 
Terrible, and the hereditary neurosis of the royal family of 
Spain, &c. Messrs. Bell and Bradfute are the publishers. 
d he progiess of sexual evolution in the animal kingdom re- 
solves itself into three main stages, — germiparity, hermaphro- 
ditism, and unisexuality. 
J. D. Caton (“ American Naturalist ”) has discovered a species 
of blind fishes in the water of an Artesian well, 170 feet in 
depth, in California. Artesian wells in the Eastern States have 
already yielded eighteen species of sightless fishes. 
S. N. Rhoads, in the same journal, gives some instances of the 
tenacity of life of the raccoon. We suspedt that if this animal 
were placed in Dr. B. W. Richardson’s asphyxiating chamber 
it would outlive the cat. 
“ Cosmos les Mondes,” on the faith of German journals not 
named, gives an account of the eledtro-magnetic properties of a 
plant, Phytolacca electrica. On breaking a stem the hand receives 
a shock like that given by the conductor of an indudlion-coil. 
At the distance of 6 metres the needle is affedled, and becomes 
quite deranged if brought nearer. This energy reaches its 
maximum at 2 p.m., and almost disappears at nightfall. No bird 
or insecft ever alights upon the plant ! 
The general Congress of Geologists was adjourned last year 
for fear of the cholera. This year the Social Science Congress 
declines to meet for fear of another disease, — the General 
Eledlion. 
We see, in an exchange, mention of a rain of small tortoises 
which took place at Raleigh, in North Carolina. These animals, 
from their flattened form and higher specific gravity, are more 
rarely carried through the air than frogs or fishes. 
The supply of fleas in Paris is said to have greatly fallen off 
this season, a fadt which some persons conned! with the possible 
approach of the cholera. 
Professor Chevreul entered upon his hundredth year yesterday 
(August 31st). 
Lake Mono, the “ Dead Sea of the West,” is situate in the 
county Mono, in California. This sheet of water, go miles long 
by 18 in width, is so intensely alkaline that nothing can live in 
it. Its shores are barren and desolate. 
The old story of a battle between a spider and a toad, in which 
the latter when bitten had recourse to plantain leaves as an 
antidote, has been revived, and is being reproduced with varia- 
tions. M. Lataste points out that the toothless toad would have 
