ZOOLOGY AND EOTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 37 



pelvic filaments coincides with the period during which it would be of 

 most use as an accessory respiratory organ— that is while the fish is 

 guarding its eggs and young in the underground nest. 



Habits of Miller's Thumbs.*- -Theodor Gil] gives an interesting 

 account of Cottus ijobio and related forms, calling attention to their 

 habit of resting fixed to the bottom for a long time, the partial accommo- 

 dation of their colour to the surroundings, their respiratory movements, 

 which are about forty per minute, their omnivorous appetite and destruc- 

 tiveness to fish-eggs, the more intense colouring of the males, and so on. 



Fishes of New South Wales.j— D. G. Stead gives a useful account 

 of the edible fishes of New South Wales, written in the main from a 

 practical point of view. 



Fauna of the Obersee.i — Guido Schneider has made a regional 

 survey of this, the largest lake in Estland. He gives an account of 

 its physical and chemical peculiarity, its flora and plankton, and fauna. 

 There seem to be no Amoebae, Heliozoa, Sponges, Bryozoa. There 

 are few Rotifers or Annelids. Free Nematodes are abundant, e.g. two 

 new species — Chromadora leliberti and C. revalimsis. Apart from the 

 stickleback, the fishes are simply the common food-fishes, showing per- 

 sistent isolation for centuries. 



Fish living inside Strombus.§ — L. Plate describes Apogonichthgs 

 stroinbi sp. n., from the Bahamas, which spends part of its time (the 

 day ?) in the mantle cavity of large specimens of Strombus gigas. Like 

 Fierasfer in Holothurians, it does not seem to do its host any good. 

 Plate calls attention to Amphiprion bicinclus in the large sea-anemone 

 Crambactis arabica, the small Carangidae which are sheltered by large 

 jellyfishes, and small fishes which live among the very long and hair- 

 like spines of the dark-coloured rock-urchin (Diudema saxatile). 



Tunicata. 



Phagocytosis and Auto-digestion in Diplosoma.|j — A. Pizon con- 

 tinues his study of Diplosoma, which has three kinds of ascidiozooids — 

 monothoracic, bithoracic, and bithoracic and biventric. Certain organs 

 of the bithoracic type (which has two branchiae, two gullets, and two 

 rectal tubes) have an ephemeral existence. After 12-18 hours in the 

 summer the older thorax (branchia, oesophagus, rectum) regresses and 

 disappears in three or four days. The involution is characterised by 

 the very active part played by the persisting digestive organs— there 

 is a literal auto-digestion — and by the great phagocytic activity of 

 amoeboid cells. 



Musculature of Salpa.1T— R. Streiff gives a detailed account of the 

 musculature in the various species of Salpa, and shows how it may be 



* Smithsonian Misc. Coll., v. (1903) pp. 101-16 (14 figs.). 



+ The Edible Fishes of New South Wales: their Present Importance and their 

 Potentialities. Board of Fisheries, New South Wales (1908) 123 pp. (81 pis. and 

 1 map). X Arch - Biontolog., ii. heft i. (1908) pp. 1-190 (10 pis.). 



§ Zool. Anzeig., xxxiii. (1908) pp. 393-9 (2 figs.). 



| Comptes Rendus, cxlvii. (1908) pp. G40-1. 



i Zcol. Jahrb., xxvii. (1903; pp. 1-32 (4 pis. and 11 figs.). 



