I have seen of this species only one specimen, which is an adult male. The colors of the female may be expected to be somewhat lighter. I have dedicated it to Mr. Jno. Van Denburgh, of San Francisco, an able writer on herpetological subjects.-E. D. COPE.

Modification of the Brain during Growth.2-1. One of the most marked changes of the embryo brain is the formation of the great bend near its middle, giving rise to the cephalic fexure. The cause of the bend is unknown. After it is formed, the early appearance of optic fibers and those of the postcommissure and supracommissure tends to produce a comparatively fixed portion at this bend as shown by measurements of parts of the brain in soft shelled turtle and the cat. The later developing parts produce secondary changes in the form of the brain tube as the embryo takes on the specific characters of the adult.

2. The pons bend of embryo mammals is a feature of the brain of many non-mammalian embryos which do not possess a pons, and in specimens examined is associated with and seems to be due to the early and enormous development of the Gasserian ganglion and its union with the brain by the fifth nerve. Later these parts are overshadowed by the growth of other parts and the pons bend becomes obscure.

3. In the cat the pons bend is exaggerated by the formation of a great fist shaped mass of cells at the surface on each side of the meson. This mass of cells is continuous with a conspicuous layer of cells which extends upon the surface to the union of the solid wall of the oblongata with the membranous roof or tela. This layer and cell mass seem to be proliferations such as His and Herrick have described as occurring at the union of a solid wall with a membrane. Later these cells are

covered by pons fibers.

4. In the soft shelled turtle and the cat, early stages show clearly that the prosotela, the membrane included by the edges of the rima in the cerebrum, is a continuation of the membranous roof of the diencephal, such that if the brain were plastic the continuation of each side could be brought to occupy the dorsal surface of its cerebrum. A condition would thus occur which is comparable with the actual condition found by Wilder in Ceratodus. It may be of value in the further determination of homologies between the brain of fishes and mammals, as in fishes the membranous roof of cerebrum and diencephal is continuous.

2 Abstract of paper read before the Amer. Asso. Adv. Sci., Aug. 24, 1896.

5. The dorsal (sensory) and ventral (motor) zones of His, demarcated by a sulcus extending from the myel through the brain to the optic recess, have not been verified in the forms examined (cat, turtle, amphibia, bird). The indications are rather that an original segmented condition is partially disguised by a secondary formation of sulci which extend in a cephalo-caudal direction. None of the five such sulci found in the oblongata could be said to separate the sensory from the motor region. The dorsal and ventral of them demarcate raphés. One of them occurs in the sensory, two in the motor, but there is no dividing sulcus between the two regions. The extreme point to which any of them could be traced was in the region of the albicans, none of them reaching the porta or the optic recess. A second group of sulci arising in the optic and preoptic recesses extend to the porta, two of them passing through the porta to form the boundary of the striatum. SUSANNA PHELPS GAGE.

The Lion of India. The report that Uncia leo is found at the present time in the environs of Guzerate and Kutch appears to be an error. It has probably never existed in the latter locality, and is now to be met with only in the forest of Gir in the Kathiawar. It has disappeared from Rajkot, where it was abundant in 1832, from the hills. of Bardo, and from many other localities where it formerly existed in great numbers, nor has it been seen for a long time in the forest above mentioned. Formerly hunters very seldom ventured in that region for fear of the bandits who were in the habit of taking refuge there, and also for fear of contracting fever. Gradually, however, the forest is being cleared away, settlements are being made, and the domain of the lion is being curtailed. To prevent total extinction of the species, the Durbar of Kathiawar has forbidden lion hunts for a period of six years. But this will do no good unless at the same time a forest reservation is made.

The popular belief that this species is without a mane in India is another error that is corrected. (Revue Scientif. Août, 1896).

Inheritance of Artificial Mutilations.-The instance cited by Mr. Norman E. Hills (in the September Naturalist) of the birth of shorttailed fox terriors, is striking in showing a larger proportion of deformed puppies than is common in such cases, but instances like the one cited are frequently noted in the press devoted to dogs, and concerning several breeds that have been mutilated for generations.

But to thoroughly consider the matter of the inheritance of artificial deformities, the cases of breeds in which the deformity is usually

natural, should be considered. I believe the tailless Manx cats generally come in that shape, and this I know is often the case with the bobtail sheep-dog of England, and this is stated of several breeds of dogs, generally of the type of the bobtail sheep-dog found in other countries, Norway, Southern Russia and elsewhere.

But the peculiar feature of this inheritance is its freakishness. Two naturally long-tailed parents have produced a tailless dog, in whom the potency was so strong that no bitch, no matter what the breed was, ever produced a full, natural tailed puppy to him. I remember of one puppy by this dog, ex his double grandam (he was the son of litter brother and sister) whose tail was of usual length, but had a deformity in it as though it were tied in a knot. Again, it is not at all uncommon for a bitch to begin production with all naturally long-tailed puppies, and after some years, change to always producing some tailless ones, even when mated with mongrel dogs, while some bitches reverse the order, beginning with tailless ones and changing to full-tailed ones. I recently noted a reported instance of just such a change of production in a Manx cat, and it seems to me that this freakishness introduces a very disturbing element into consideration of the question of inheritance.

As an allied matter, please permit me to say that the notion that if a bitch has a mongrel litter she will thereafter always produce puppies showing traces of the unallied sire, is rank rubbish, and on the point that this occurrence is not invariable, any experienced breeder will concur, as very, very few such breeders have ever seen such a case. For myself, I have bred dogs for over forty years, have bred many mongrel litters, and never saw a case of telegony-or, as we commonly call it, "influence of previous sire." That this influence does sometimes show itself, is beyond doubt; but some very extended inquiries of mine some years since, showed that it was shown only in about one per cent. of cases of mesaliances; and when it was considered that an instance of this "influence" will be remembered from its extraordinary charac ter, while instances where it does not occur are forgotten, being the expected result, I believe that the one-tenth of one per cent. of cases will be found to be the extent of its occurrence. It is very strange that those scientific men who uphold the idea of the invariable occurrence of this "influence," all overlook the potent fact that the "influence" shows itself invariably only in the skin and hair, never affecting conformation. In view of this, the theory propounded by Dr. Jonathan Hutchinson, President Royal College of Surgeons; Dr. J. Sidney Turner, President South British Medical Society, and Everett Millais, Esq., seems sound, and bears against the idea of the bitch being herself

bastardized, that theory being that unripe ova are partially impreg nated by the spermatozoa of the foreign male, not sufficiently to fully vivify them, the influence of this impregnation affecting only the epiblast, from which the skin is evolved, and a subsequent fertilization brings full life to the ova, determining other features of the foetus. Thus, in the case of a pug bitch, which had a mongrel litter by a Skye terrior, and at her subsequent whelping by a pug dog, had some puppies with rough hair, these "influenced" puppies had the conformation of the pug all over, even to the twisted tail.

However, be the scientific part of the question what it may, the too common idea that a bitch having a mongrel litter will show influence of that litter in all future offspring, is utterly fallacious.

Yours truly,

Oakmont, Pa., Sept. 14, 1896.

W. WADE.

ENTOMOLOGY.'

A New Character in the Colobognatha, with Drawings of Siphonotus. In all known Diplopoda the external seminal apertures are located just behind the second pair of legs or in the coxæ of the second legs. In all Diplopoda except Polyxenus one or more pairs of legs are more or less modified to assist in copulation. In a great majority of forms the legs most modified are those of the seventh segment, but in two groups, the Omniscomorpha and Limacomorpha of Pocock the legs of the seventh segment are unmodified, while one or more pairs at the caudal extremity of the body are transformed into copulatory organs. The modification which has taken place in the Limacomorpha is very slight, for according to Mr. Pocock's descriptions and figures the last legs of Glomeridesmus marmoreus consist of four or five joints and differ from the others mostly in being shortened and thickened. An equal or greater degree of specialization is now known to exist in other legs than those of the seventh segment, indeed, an almost equal peculiarity of structure is sometimes manifested by nearly all the male legs of certain genera of Polydesmidæ, Spirostreptide and Spirobolidæ. Especially noteworthy are the first pair of legs in Iulidæ, Parajulidæ and Pæromopodidae; the second pair of legs of Stemmatoiulidæ and Parajulidæ; the third pair in Striariidæ. WithEdited by Clarence M. Weed, New Hampshire College, Durham, N. H. 2 Journ. Linn. Soc. Zool., XXIV, 475.

out detailing the very numerous and striking contrivances displayed by nearly all the anterior legs of some Craspedosomatidæ, it is sufficient to point out that in Seytonotus modifications apparently as great as those of Glomeridesmus occur as far back as the twentieth pair of legs. In the light of these facts the degree of modification shown by Glomeridesmus counts for little or nothing as an evidence of relationship with the Oniscomorpha. It might be said that Glomeridesmus has no copulatory legs at all, for the structures figured by Mr. Pocock are probably not comparable with the true copulatory legs of the other Diplopod groups, either in structure or function. The really remarkable thing about Glomeridesmus is that the legs of the seventh segment are not modified. Yet on this account we are not obliged to arrange Glomeridesmus in a separate category, for the degrees of modification to be found in the legs of the seventh segment of the other Diplopod groups are very various. It is even possible to trace, in the second pair of legs of the seventh segment of Craspedosomatide all the stages from the nearly normal to the completely modified condition. Thus with reference to the fact that the seventh legs are unmodified, Glomeridesmus may be looked upon as one end of a series, not necessarily farther removed from the other groups than they are from each other. Certainly the distance between the unmodified legs of Glomeridesmus and the distinctly jointed copulatory legs of Polydesmoidea and Polyzonoidea is not greater than that between those of the Polydesmoidea and the Spirostreptoidea.

If, however, we admit that differences in the position and degree of modification of legs transformed for copulatory purposes are not of themselves characters of fundamental importance in the Diplopoda, we may seem to be under the necessity of admitting in addition that the constant appearance of what we may call the true copulatory legs in the place of the anterior or both pairs of the seventh segment is an evidence that the Helminthomorpha of Pocock are a homogeneous group to the extent of having more affinity with each other than with the Oniscomorpha. If, however, facts exist which indicate that the copulatory legs may have had independent origins in any of the Helminthomorpha the evidence just referred to is largely overthrown, for the utter diversity in plan of the copulatory legs of the different orders of Diplopoda is itself a strong indication that they represent independent lines of development. Such seems to be the import of the fact that the legs which in the Merocheta' are primarily transformed 3 Am. N. Y. Acad. Sci., VIII, 233 (1894).

* An ordinal name to cover the Poly desmoidea, Craspedosomatoidea and Callipodoidea. Cf. Ann. N. Y. Acad. Sci., Vol. IX, (1895).