G. GENERAL NATURAL HISTORY AND ZOOLOGY. 271 



creous lining to the shell, might be made to produce pearls. 

 18 A, Ifarch 29,1872,51. 



EMBRYOLOGY OF TEREBRATULINA AND ASCIDIA, AND PRO- 

 TECTIVE COLORATION OF MOLLUSCA. 



Professor Edward S. Morse has presented, in a late memoir 

 to the Boston Society of Natural History, the results of his 

 researches on the early stages of terebratulina, a brachiopod 

 common to our coast. The paper is illustrated by two quar- 

 to steel plates containing fifty-eight figures. Relations here- 

 tofore believed to exist between the brachiopods and a low 

 group of animals (the polyzoa) are, in the opinion of the au- 

 thor, still further proved in this investigation. These stud- 

 ies give us, for the first time, a knowledge of the early stages 

 of a group of animals which has long attracted the attention 

 of naturalists, Cuvier, Owen, Vogt, Hancock, Huxley, and 

 many distinguished European savants having contributed 

 largely to a knowledge of the adult animals of this group. 

 This memoir of Professor Morse has been reprinted in the 

 Annals and Magazine of Natural History of London, and 

 has called forth complimentary notices in other European 

 publications. In the current volume of the society's pro- 

 ceedings are several articles from the pen of the same author. 

 In one, on the protective coloration of mollusca, Professor 

 Morse shows that the theory of protective coloring, as ad- 

 vanced by Wallace, applies equally to our native mollusca, 

 and many instances are cited in support of this view. An- 

 other paper by Professor Morse, on the early stages of an as- 

 cidian, illustrated by a steel plate, will interest those who 

 are acquainted with Kowalevsky's startling comparisons be- 

 tween the embryology of the ascidians (considered by many 

 to be a low group of mollusks) and the embryology of the 

 vertebrates. Additional facts and suggestions are presented 

 by Professor Morse. 



SANDWICH ISLAND ACHATINELLAS. 



A very interesting and important contribution to our 

 knowledge of the variation and geographical distribution of 

 species is published in a recent number of Nature, by Mr. 

 John T. Gulick, in an account of the species of the Helieida?, 

 known as the Achat inellince ', found in the Sandwich Islands. 



