EDITORIAL GLEANINGS.
In the December number of 'The American Naturalist,' Dr. H.W. Rand has given an extended abstract of Friedenthal's experimental proof of blood-relationship.[1] The blood of the Cat and the Ocelot is physiologically equivalent. The carotid arteries of these two animals were connected so that an exchange of blood took place from one to the other. No hemoglobin appeared in the bladder of either animal. But if a Cat and a Rabbit be connected in the same way, both animals die in a few minutes from the poisonous effects of the foreign blood upon the central nervous system. The effect of human serum was tried upon the blood of six species of Apes—(Platyrhines), Pithesciurus sciureus and Ateles ater; (Catarrhines), Cynocephalus babuin, Macacus sinicus, M. cynomolgus, and Rhesus nemestrinus—at the Berlin Zoological Garden. In all cases the human serum dissolved the Ape corpuscles. Among the true Anthropoid Apes is found blood which is physiologically equivalent to that of man, as was proved by experiments made with an Orang-outang, a Gibbon, and a ten-year-old Chimpanzee, just as the blood of such widely separated races as the negro and white is physiologically equivalent. The writer concludes that such experiments justify the placing of man and the Anthropoid Apes together in the same family, "or at least in the same suborder, rather than isolating man in a suborder of primates, coördinate with the suborders of the Platyrhines and Catarrhines."
At a meeting of the Zoological Society on Dec. 17th, 1901, a communication was read from Mr. G. Metcalfe, M.A., of New South Wales, concerning the reproduction of the Duckbill (Ornithorhynchus anatinus). The author stated that he was of opinion, after many years' observation of the animal, that the Duckbill was viviparous, and that the young were not, as was generally supposed, hatched from the eggs after they had been deposited.
We have received from Cairo, 'Notes for Travellers and Sportsmen in the Sudan.' "Published by Authority." This will prove a most
- ↑ "Ueber einen experimentellen Nachweis von Blutverwandschaft," 'Archiv for Anatomie und Physiologie,' physiologische Abtheilung, Hefte 5 und 6, 1900.
