ZOOLOGY AND I'.OTANY, MICROSCOPY, ETC. 81 



Biderations it seems probable that this, like the correlation of variatious 

 in the number of tentacles, is due wholly to the similar action of en- 

 vironmental agents upon parent and offspring. 



Note on Hydra olig-actis.* — Baini Parshad reports finding a speci- 

 men with seven tentacles, manv with four, and some with five. Nelson 

 Aunandale has noted that he has not seen Indian specimens with more 

 than six tentacles. The food consisted of young stages of the aphis 

 Siphocoryne mjmphse which infested the pond-weed on which the Hydra 

 was growing. 



Tasmanian Hydroids.f — E. A. Briggs reports on a collection of 

 fourteen Tasmanian Plumularids, eight of which are recorded for the 

 first time from the eastern coast of Tasmania. The collection included 

 Flunmlaria procumbens Spencer, F. sulcata Lamarck, Aglaophenki 

 armata Bale, A. temiissima Bale, and Nemertesia ciliata Bale. There 

 seems to be a considerable amount of variation in the details of the last- 

 named species, which was described by Bale in 1914. 



Heliotropic Reactions of Eudendrium.J — Jacques Loeb and 

 Hardolph Wasceneys have inquired into the relative efficiency of various 

 parts of the spectrum for the heliotropic reactions of the hydroid 

 Eudendrlum. Their experiments have shown that the most efficient 

 region in the spectrum for the production of heliotropic curvatures is 

 situated in the blue at 4735 A . u. This region coincides approximately 

 with the one found by Blaauw for the seedlings of oats (4780 A . u). 

 The regions in the red, orange and yellow are practically without effect 

 in both Eudendrium and Aveiia, and it is concluded that the heliotropism 

 of the sessile animal Eudendrium, and that of the sessile plant Avena, 

 are identical even as regards the most efficient wave-length. 



Ctenophora of Chilka Lake.§ — Nelson Aunandale and Stanley Kemp 

 found in Chilka Lake a race (Sen^'a/msi.s-) of Fleurobrachia globosa Moser, 

 a species originally described from the Malay Archipelago. It occurs 

 for a great part of the year over the whole of the lake, but disappears 

 in the fresh -water season, and does not reappear until the water has 

 regained a certain salinity. The typical form of the species has not 

 been found in the Indian Ocean, but Browne has described another race 

 (ceylonensis), from the Gulf of Manaar. In many of the specimens 

 from Chilka Lake, the jelly, more particularly in the neighbourhood of 

 the stomodaeum, funnels and tentacle-sheaths, contains a large number 

 of minute and apparently immature Distomid Trematodes. They are 

 accompanied by eggs, hardly smaller than themselves, resembling those 

 found in the canals of the young of Acromitus rabanchatu. On the 

 external surface of a few of the Ctenophores there were Protozoa of the 

 genus Trkhodlna. 



* Records Indian Museum, xi. (1915) p. 349. 



t Journ. Proc. Roy. Soc. New South Wales, xlviii. (1915) pp. 302-18 (2 pis.). 



t Journ Exper. Zool., xix. (1915) pp. 2:3-35. 



§ Mem. Indian Museum, v. (1915) pp. 117-8. 



Feb. 16th, 1916 G 



