xciv GENERAL SUMMARY OF SCIENTIFIC AND 



a'lon is that of a ssmd-stixv, A7nphiura Otteri of Ljiingmann, 

 which occurred off Cape Cod in company with the Delto- 

 cyathus. It has heretofore only been obtained in 550 fathoms 

 off the coast of Portugal by the Swedish naturalists on the 

 corvette Josephine. 



The sea-urchins, or Echini^ have been monographed by Mr. 

 Alexander Agassiz in a splendidly printed and illustrated 

 work, of which two volumes have appeared during the year. 

 The work, which will be a classic in zoology, already contains 

 over fifty plates, some of them heliotypes and Woodbury types. 

 As the author visited all the European museums, and consult- 

 ed the types in them, while his work is based on the unrivaled 

 collections in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the work 

 must for a Ions: time remain the standard authority on this 

 subject. M. A. F. Marion publishes a note on the hybrids 

 which he obtained by artificial impregnation between two 

 sea-urchins, Sphmrechiniis brevisjmiosas and Toxop)neustes li- 

 vidus. He only succeeded in rearing the Pluteus form of 

 larva, as it is impossible to carry these delicate organisms 

 further along in their development. 



The literature of the 3Iollusca has been extended by the 

 usual number of special papers on shell-fish, though we do 

 not recall any of special value relative to their development, 

 except some brief notes by E.Ray Lankester, and one or two 

 others. Professor Morse, in his paper on the "Systematic Po- 

 sition of Brachiopods," in a note reviews what has been said 

 regarding the affinities of Dentalium^ the tooth shell, and 

 suggests that they bear some relations to the Tetrabranchiate 

 Cephalopods " in the numerous and retractile tentacles, the 

 dorsal turn of the shell, and the strict identity between a 

 peculiar bilateral cartilaginous body which occurs in the 

 head oi Dentalium as well as in the head oi Nautilus pompi- 

 llus.^'' A large beak of a Cephalopod, indicating that the ani- 

 mal must have been between twenty and thirty feet long, 

 and found in the ISTorth Atlantic, is figured and noticed by 

 Dr. Packard in the American Naturalist. This colossal cuttle- 

 fish is referred by Steenstrup to Architeuthis dux. Mr. W. 

 II. Dall contributes a note to the same journal on colos- 

 sal Octopi in the Pacific. But the actual occurrence of an 

 immense squid on the coast of Newfoundland has been 

 stated by Mr. Alexander Murray, of the Canadian Geological 



