226 Miscellaneous,' The heart in the Gadi, like that of osseous fishes in general, being a venous heart, and, on the other hand, its ventricle and auricle being always deprived of vessels with red blood, it follows necessarily that the venous blood alone serves for the nutrition of muscular fibre, and maintains the contractility of the latter. It is by the repeated conflict of the venous blood and the muscular fibre that is produced the double movement of assimilation and decomposition which con-stitutes nutrition. We are convinced that the venous blood issuing from the heart would furnish on analysis a somewhat higher pro-portion of carbonic acid than that which enters the auricle, since the blood driven into the branchial artery must contain in addition the acid formed by the muscles of the auricle and ventricle in conse-quence of their contraction. — Comptes Bendus, January 28th, 1867, pp. 192-194. On a new Specimen o/" Telerpeton Elginense. By Prof. T. H. Huxley, LL.D., F.R.S., V.P.G.S. The specimen which was described in this paper had been broken into five pieces, exhibiting hollow casts of most of the bones of Telerpeton Elginense. It is the property of Mr. James Grant of Lossiemouth, and came from the reptiliferous beds of that locality, along with some highly interesting fragments of Stagonolepis and Hyper odapedon. The casts described by the author consisted of impressions of the bones of the skull, together with the lower jaw and the teeth, of most of the vertebrae and ribs, of the greater portions of the pelvic and scapular arches, and of representatives of most of the bones of the fore and hind limbs ; and it was stated that the characters of all these portions of the skeleton indicated deci-dedly Lacertilian affinities. In describing these remains. Professor Huxley discussed especially the biconcave character of the vertebrae, the mode of implantation of the teeth (which he believed to be Acrodont, and not Thecodont), and the anomalous structure of the fifth digit of the hind foot (which presents only two phalanges, a proximal and a terminal) — a structure which differs from that of all known Lacertilian Reptiles, whether recent or fossil. His researches had led him to conclude that the animal is one of the Reptilia, and is devoid of the slightest indication of affinity with the Amphibia. In all its characters it is decidedly Saurian, and. accords with the suborder Kionocrania of the true Lacertilia ; but the author had not been able to make sure that it possessed a columella. He also remarked that the possession by Telerpeton Elginense of vertebrae with concave articular faces does not interfere with this view, as, although most recent Lacertilia have concavo-convex vertebrae, biconcave vertebrae much more deeply excavated than those of T. Elginense are met with among the exist-ing Geckos. Professor Huxley in conclusion drew attention to the interesting fact that Telerpeton presents not a single character approximating it towards the type of the Permian Proterosauria, or the Triassic
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