646 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



dasyura g. et sp. n., while among the Amphipods Leucothoe spinicarpa 

 sp. n. occurred. 



Fresh-water Palaemonidae from Madagascar.* — H. Coutiere has 

 studied a collection of these Crustacea, comprising fourteen species, of 

 which three are new. The interest of the collection lies in the wide 

 distribution of the species included in it, most of them being found in 

 the Malay Archipelago, in Africa, and various parts of the Pacific, as 

 well as in Madagascar. These facts the author believes can only be 

 explained on the supposition that the species of Palsemon were primi- 

 tively littoral forms which have become gradually adapted to life in 

 fresh water. This view is confirmed by tbe fact that the same species 

 sometimes occurs in brackish lagoons and in fresh water. This is even 

 more marked in the species of Leander, while in the interesting case 

 of Palsemonetes variants, where there is the same plasticity, the develop- 

 ment is direct in fresh water and indirect in salt. There is reason to 

 believe that the acquisition of the fresh-water habitat is recent in the 

 species of Palsemon ; and the fact that the larvae of certain species are 

 able to tolerate salt water increases the chances of distribution of these 

 species. The paper includes a discussion of the minute characters of 

 the genus Palsemon. 



Ostracoda from the Bismarck Archipelago.! — Dr. W. Vavra de- 

 scribes a small collection made by Dahl, including Pontojjarta rara g. et 

 sp. n. The new genus resembles Candona as regards the shell, and 

 Cypria and Cyclocypris as regards the structure of the limbs ; it is 

 peculiar in possessing two bristles on the posterior border of the furca. 



Annulata. 



Coelomic Fluid in Acanthodrilids.J — W. Blaxland Benham finds 

 that in Octochsetus mulliporus and allied species, the coelomic fluid is 

 creamy-white, and contains a large number of cellular elements. Four 

 different kinds of elements are recognisable, the amcebocytes, the eleo- 

 cytes, the lamprocytes, the linocytes, tbe last being the rarest and the 

 lamprocytes the most abundant. The amcebocytes are of two types, 

 depending on the characters of the granules and the pseudopodia. In 

 the eleocytes (Rosa), numerous clear colourless globules of oil are 

 present. These elements are undoubtedly closely related to the lampro- 

 cytes, which are cells containing a clear colourless vacuole with an in- 

 cluded highly refringent granule. The special character of the linocyte 

 is the presence of a coiled thread, the cells recalling the thread-con- 

 taining cells described bv Goodrich in Vermiculus. 



Eggs of Allolobophora fcetida.§— Katharine Foot and Ella Church 

 Strobell publish a fresh series of photographs of these eggs, which have 

 been taken with a view to settling certain disputed points in connec- 

 tion with yolk-nuclei and polar rings. The preparations confirm the 

 authors in their view that a part of the yolk-nucleus persists, and 

 contributes to the formation of the polar rings. They also show that 



• Ann. Pci. Nat. (Zool.), xii. (1900) pp. 249-342 (5 pis.). 



t Arch. Naturgesch., Isvi. (1901) pp. 179-86 (2 pis.). 



X Quart. Journ. Micr. Sci., xliv. (1901) pp. 565-90 (1 pi.). 



§ Journ. Morph., xvii. (1901) pp. 517-54 (5 figs.). 



