302 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



Hyatt also discusses the influence of the nature of the sea- 

 bottom and the temperature of the water on variations of 

 forms and their distribution. He claims that these animals 

 are directly modified by changes in the physical surround- 

 ings, and he cannot imagine the intervention of natural se- 

 lection, since " the uniform action of a given temperature, 

 depth, amount of sediment, sheltered locality, etc., have 

 a corresponding uniformity in results, and are sufficient 

 in themselves to account for the general modifications de- 

 scribed." 



A number of new Caribbean sponges are described in the 

 Annals and Magazine of Natural History by Thomas Higgin. 



Certain minute parasitic worm-like organisms, called Dicy- 

 ema and Dlcye?nella, which live in the liquid bathing the 

 spongy bodies (perhaps renal organs) of cuttle-fishes, have 

 been studied in all their phases of development by a Belgian 

 naturalist, E. Van Beneden, who concludes that they form 

 the type of a new sub-kingdom of animals, which he calls 

 Mesozoa. 



It appears that tape-worms may occur abundantly in the 

 intestines of rabbits, as stated by Mr. G. J. Romanes in 

 Nature. This is an unexpected fact, since the rabbit is 

 purely an herbivorous animal. The fact is explained by Mr. 

 R. D. Turner in a letter to Nature (February 15), who says: 

 "I would suggest that the tape -worm referred to by Mr. 

 G. J. Romanes is like the Bothriocephal us of man, perhaps a 

 species of the same genus. This is not supposed to have a 

 cystic state, but to be developed from a ciliated embryo 

 taken into the system in raw or badly cooked vegetables 

 which have been watered by sewage from cesspools, in 

 which the eirGfS will remain alive for months. In the same 

 way the eggs of the rabbit's tape-worm probably remain in 

 the animal's droppings till set free in rain as ciliated em- 

 bryos. As the rabbit feeds on the vegetation watered*by 

 such rain, there is no difficulty in understanding how the 

 embryos would reach his alimentary canal." 



Some of the fluke-worms (Dlsto)na, etc.) of Scandinavia are 

 described and figured by Olsson in the Transactions of the 

 Swedish Academy. 



The classification of the lower worms, especially the flat 

 worms, forms the subject of two elaborate papers by Mr. 



