358 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



Bryozoa from the Sudanese Red Sea.* — A. W. Waters reports on 

 the collection of Bryozoa made by Cyril Crossland in the Sudanese 

 Red Sea. He calls attention to the very wide distribution of many 

 species of tropical Bryozoa ; to the great variety of structure to be found 

 in the oral glands, which also show striking similarity in certain groups ; 

 to the number of characters that influence the structure of the oper- 

 culum ; and to many other points of interest. 



Echinoderma. 



Australian and Indo-Pacific Echinoderms.t — H. L. Clark reports 

 on the Australian material in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 

 Harvard. He discusses, among others, the Ophiuroid. genera Ophiar- 

 achna and Ophiopeza (the latter becoming a synonym of Pectinura). 

 He gives keys for the species of Pectinura, Ophiarachnella, etc., and 

 establishes as new Ophiuroid genera Baihypectinura, Cryptopelta, and 

 Conocladus. An interesting Echinothurid, Asthenosoma thetidis sp. n., is 

 described. 



Movements of Starfishes on the Shore.J — G. Bohn has studied 

 the movements of Aster ias rubens, which ascends and descends on the 

 shore. He says that it exhibits a " geotropoism " alternately negative 

 and positive. But changes in the illumination, the degree of oxygena- 

 tion, and the pressure, may disturb the " geotropism "• — altering the sign. 



Glands of Ophiuroids.§ — A. Reichensperger finds that the lumin- 

 escence of Ophiopsila annulosa and Amphiura filiformis is due to special 

 glandular cells and cell-masses. The cells are large, with granular and 

 mucous contents and a distinct nucleus. They send long processes into 

 the epithelium ; in Ophiopsila fine canals penetrate the cuticle. In 

 Amphiura filiformis there are in the vicinity of the gland-apertures fine 

 cuticular rods into which nerve fibrils extend. Glandular cells, with 

 very peculiar nuclei, occur in A. squamata in the calcareous matrix near 

 the base of the tube-feet, but they have not to do with the luminescence. 

 The tube-feet of A. squamata showed no luminescence. 



It seems that the luminescence is strictly intracellular or intra- 

 glandular. In many species the tube-feet have glands, whose secretion 

 helps in locomotion, but in species that move by jerks these glands are 

 few or absent. In a large number of Ophiuroids the tube-feet are 

 locomotor, in others they are mainly sensory. In Ophiomyxa there are 

 numerous protective glands over the whole surface. 



Ccelentera. 



Alcyonarians from Gulf of Cutch.|| — J. Arthur Thomson and 

 G. Crane report on a collection of Alcyonarians made by Hornell 

 in shallow water in the Gulf of Cutch. Specimens of Dendronephthya, 

 better known as Spongodes, of Lophogoryia, and Astromuricea, can be 



* Journ. Linn. Soc. (Zool.) xxxi. (1909) pp. 123-81 (9 pis.). 



+ Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., lii. (1909) pp. 109-35 (1 pi.). 



% C.R. Soc. Biol. Paris, lxvi. (1909) pp. 444-6. 



§ Zeitschr. wiss. Zool., xci. (1908) pp. 304-50 (2 pis. and 5 figs.). 



jl Ann. Nat. Hist., iii. (1909) pp. 362-6. 



