DEPARTMENT OF MARINE BIOLOGY. 135 



Indies only in deep water. Among the brittle-stars, the most important cap- 

 ture was a fine specimen of the rare and little-known phioderma guttata. 

 Of the holothurians, an apparently undescribed species of the genus Holo- 

 thuria, pure white in color, is remarkable for the large amount of sand 

 which uniformly and persistently adheres to the body-surface. In killing 

 holothurians, and indeed all echinoderms, Mayer's method of narcotization, 

 by placing the animals in a molecular solution of magnesium sulphate, was 

 found invaluable, proving satisfactory in every case. 



Studies of Foraminifera of Montego Bay, Jamaica, by J. A. Cushman, 

 Boston Society of Natural History. 



The study of the development of the various species of Orbitolites, es- 

 pecially the early stages, resulted in the finding of the actual megalospheric 

 young in the outer chambers of the parent test, and the young also settling 

 down in nearly all the early stages. Material was preserved for the further 

 study of the cytological conditions in the megalospheric form. No micro- 

 spheric sexual young were found at this season. A paper is in progress 

 snowing the comparative acceleration of development in the different species 

 of Orbitolites based largely on this material. 



I also collected foraminiferal material from shore out to 10 fathoms, under 

 varying conditions, from the sand of the reefs to the muds of the Bogue 

 Islands. As a result, a series is available for study which will give an ade- 

 quate idea of the littoral foraminiferal fauna of a typical tropical shore of 

 the West Indies. This is a preliminary step in the work which it is hoped 

 may be carried into deeper waters in the same region and which will then 

 afford accurate and detailed data for the comparison with foraminiferal de- 

 posits of the later geological periods of our Coastal Plain and the regions 

 surrounding the Caribbean Sea. The conditions under which those deposits 

 were laid down are now merely a matter of conjecture and their relation to 

 other fossil-bearing beds largely problematical. 



The Structure of the Spermatophores of Octopus, by Gilmatt A. Drezv, Resi- 

 dent Assistant Director of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods 

 Hole. 



The structure of spermatophores must be correlated with their function 

 and manner of discharge. Having studied the structure and manner of 

 ejaculation of the spermatophores of the squid, and having observed the way 

 in which they are placed in position by the dextrous movement of one of the 

 arms of the male, it was particularly enlightening to study the spermato- 

 phores of another animal whose habits differed from those of the squid. 



It is well known that the third right arm of the male Octopus is modified 

 and has a groove along one side from its base to its tip. The extreme end of 

 this arm in the species found in Montego Bay differs in shape and structure 

 from the ends of the other arms and receives on its inner face the end of 

 the groove referred to. It is supposed that spermatophores are passed down 

 this groove during copulation and are placed in position by the tip of the 

 arm. As the method of transfer is so different in the two forms, some dif- 

 ference in the structure of their spermatophores is to be expected. 



The study of Cephalopod spermatophores is not new, but there seem to 

 be very few forms that have been exhaustively studied and comparisons of 

 different forms are generally enlightening. My studies of this form are 



