50 SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



New South African Polyclad.* — Lydia Jacubowa describes Piano- 

 cera gilchristi sp. n. from Cape Town, which differs considerably from 

 other species of the genus. The male copulatory apparatus is character- 

 ized by the abnormal structure of the penis and the granule gland. In 

 the female apparatus the bursa copulatrix is provided with papilla?, and 

 there is no accessory vesicle. 



Incertae Sedis. 



New Hemichorda from South Africa.t - - J. D. F. Gilchrist de- 

 scribed (in 11)07) a new genus of the Phoronidea, differing from Phoronis 

 chiefly in having an involution of epidermis with definitely differenti- 

 ated (cubical) cells. The involution occurs below the nerve-ring, which 

 it partly covers ; it passes round the body, encircling the mouth, anus, 

 and nephridial apertures. In addition to this new type, Phoronopsis 

 albomaculata g. et sp. n., he described Phoronis capmsis sp.n. and Piijclm- 

 dera capmsis sp.n. 



The following observations were made on Phoronis capmsis 

 Currents of water, with food and other particles, pass in between the 

 outer and inner circle of tentacles towards the mouth. They pass out 

 between the expanded tentacles, downwards between those of the outer 

 • row, and inwards and upwards between those of the inner. Another 

 current of water passes in succession over two special patches of nervous 

 epithelium, the nephridial openings, and the anal opening, and joins the 

 last-mentioned current. Most of the particles in the first current come 

 in contact with the tentacles, and are carried on them to the mouth 

 region ; some of these are then carried back on the same tentacles on 

 which they came, and dropped off. 



Two special patches of nerve-tissue on the nerve-ring are in a 

 position with regard to currents of water similar to the pallial olfactory 

 organ of Mollusca, and probably exercise a similar function. The 

 nervous tissue at the commencement of the digestive tract appears, from 

 the definite rejection of particles after reaching this region, to be an 

 organ for the discrimination of food particles, and may be called an 

 organ of taste. 



The lophophoral gap between mouth and anus is, in the living and 

 expanded animal, no wider than the spaces between the tentacles, and 

 plays no special part in the passage of currents of water. The projecting 

 free part of the lophophoral organ is relatively large and leaf-like in life, 

 and in discharge of ova overlaps the nephridial opening conveying the 

 ovum to the brood-cavity in the tentacles. The more glandular part 

 probably supplies the mucus in which ovas and embryos are enveloped. 

 The whole organ may be called a glandular oviducal furrow. 



The blood (corpuscles and plasma) in the normal condition of the 

 animal passes successively through a median (dorsal ?) vessel, two circum- 

 cesophageal dilatable vessels, a lateral (ventral ?) vessel, and on again 

 to the median vessel. That is, in these vessels there is a true circula- 

 tion which, however, becomes oscillatory, or partly so, under abnormal 

 conditions. The movement of the blood is oscillatory (to and fro) in 



* Marine Investigations S. Africa, v. (1908, received 1910) pp. 145-9 (1 pi.). 

 + Tom. cit., pp. 151-76 (2 pis.). 



